What federal datasets record convictions by immigration status and how accessible are they?
Executive summary
Federal agencies do publish datasets that touch on criminal convictions and immigration status, but there is no single, comprehensive federal dataset that cleanly lists convictions cross‑tabulated by immigration status for all jurisdictions; the most useful sources are agency-specific feeds — ICE custody spreadsheets and enforcement statistics, CBP “criminal alien” tables, U.S. Sentencing Commission reports on federally sentenced non‑U.S. citizens, and TRAC’s compilations — each with different definitions, coverage and accessibility [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. The main federal datasets that claim to record convictions tied to immigration status
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement maintains enforcement statistics and a public detainee spreadsheet that identify people in ICE custody and flag whether detainees have known U.S. criminal convictions, a field ICE publishes openly and that newsrooms have used to analyze detention composition [1] [5]. U.S. Customs and Border Protection publishes “Criminal Alien Statistics” tables that summarize convictions attributed to people CBP labels as criminal aliens, organized by type of conduct and fiscal year [2]. The U.S. Sentencing Commission publishes reports and quick facts about federally sentenced non‑U.S. citizens that include breakdowns by citizenship category, origin countries, and the guideline groups under which they were sentenced [3]. Finally, TRAC and other watchdogs aggregate federal court, DOJ and agency releases into queryable tools that researchers use to trace prosecutions, detentions and removals alongside limited status markers [4].
2. What these datasets actually measure — and what they leave out
ICE’s spreadsheets and ERO arrest breakdowns report whether a person in custody has “U.S. criminal convictions,” but ICE’s categories mix immigration‑only offenses and a wide range of state and federal criminal convictions and do not standardize offense severity across sources [1] [5]. CBP’s “criminal alien” tables rely on records checks after apprehension and include convictions that occurred abroad or before interdiction, and their totals can exceed arrests because a person may have multiple listed convictions [2]. The U.S. Sentencing Commission covers only defendants sentenced in the federal system, so it omits state and local convictions and most immigration administrative actions [3]. TRAC compiles and cross‑references public records but depends on underlying agency transparency and often cannot resolve legal immigration status nuances such as asylum applicants or DACA recipients [4].
3. Accessibility: public, partial, and fragmented
Some agency data are relatively easy to access: ICE posts a downloadable detainee spreadsheet and periodic enforcement reports that journalists and local outlets have used for analyses [5] [1]; CBP publishes summary tables online [2]; the USSC’s reports and datasets are publicly posted [3]; TRAC provides user interfaces and downloadable queries built from court and agency releases [4]. However, accessibility is constrained by format, update cadence and metadata: ICE’s public sheets are high‑frequency but limited in historical consistency and variable in fields; CBP tables aggregate convictions rather than provide case‑level records; USSC data exclude non‑federal cases; TRAC’s tools are powerful but depend on subscriptions or technical know‑how to replicate the joins researchers need [5] [2] [3] [4].
4. Reliability, definitions and political framing — why numbers diverge
Different actors use these datasets to tell competing stories because definitions vary: ICE emphasizes “convictions” known in its databases while watchdogs point out that many detained people have no criminal conviction (TRAC, Syracuse data) and that ICE detentions increasingly include individuals without convictions, a pattern highlighted in news analyses [6] [5]. Advocacy and think‑tank outputs also diverge: conservative outlets and agency statements may foreground “criminal aliens” using CBP and ICE summaries [2] [1], while organizations like TRAC, Cato and newsrooms surface the share of detainees lacking convictions to critique enforcement priorities [6] [7] [5]. These competing framings reflect institutional agendas around enforcement visibility and public perception.
5. Where federal data gaps remain and one notable exception at the state level
No federal dataset offers a complete, case‑level ledger linking every conviction across federal, state and local courts to a verified immigration status; researchers therefore triangulate across ICE, CBP, USSC, DOJ and independent compilations to approximate the picture [1] [2] [3] [4]. A notable state‑level exception is Texas, where criminal records include documented immigration status used in NIJ‑funded research — a resource researchers cite because it links arrests to status in a way federal sources typically do not [8].