How do ICE and DHS define and report “criminal” versus “immigration” offenses in detention data?
Executive summary
ICE and DHS separate detainees in their public detention tables into three basic criminality categories—those with criminal convictions, those with pending criminal charges, and those with no known criminal convictions or charges—while counting many border and administrative cases as “immigration” rather than criminal arrests [1] [2]. Public reporting and independent analyses show a persistent discrepancy between how ICE/DHS describe “criminal” enforcement and the composition of the in-custody population: the majority of people held in ICE detention in recent reporting periods have no U.S. criminal convictions, a fact that has become a central point of contention [3] [4] [5].
1. How ICE and DHS label detainees in official data
ICE’s public detention tables and DHS monthly indicators use explicit categories for criminal history—convicted, pending charges, or no convictions—and those categories are carried through book-ins and book-outs in their reporting systems [1] [2]. The Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) and ICE extract and publish these fields from operational databases like the ICE Integrated Decision Support system, producing yes/no variables for whether an individual was previously convicted of a criminal offense [6] [2]. That binary framework is the primary mechanism by which ICE and DHS “define” criminality in their detention snapshots [1].
2. Administrative (immigration) arrests versus criminal arrests
Public guidance distinguishes administrative immigration arrests—civil enforcement of immigration law—from criminal arrests, though ICE officers can make criminal arrests under specific statutory authority when criminal conduct is suspected or observed (Section 1357) [7]. In practice, many people processed into ICE custody are arrested for administrative immigration violations (e.g., unlawful presence, overstays, illegal entry) and are therefore classified in the data as “other immigration violators” or as having no criminal conviction even though they are subject to detention [8] [7].
3. The data picture: a large non‑convicted population
Multiple institutional and independent analyses report that roughly 70–75% of the people held in ICE detention in recent periods lacked a U.S. criminal conviction, with traffic and immigration offenses making up a sizable share of recorded convictions among the minority who are convicted [3] [4] [9] [5]. Think tanks and NGOs have used ICE’s own categorical reporting to highlight that much of recent detention growth has been driven by non‑convicted immigration detainees [8] [10].
4. How “criminal” gets stretched in public messaging and analysis
Analysts warn that official language and some public statements conflate arrests, pending charges, and convictions—so DHS or ICE claims that a large share of arrests involve people with criminal charges may refer to arrest data, not the snapshot of people currently detained, and can include pending charges that never become convictions [11] [10]. Independent researchers also note that inclusion of Border Patrol book‑ins and referrals inflates non‑convicted counts because border apprehensions typically lack U.S. criminal histories [8] [12].
5. Limits of the public data and areas of dispute
ICE and OHSS publish the variables they extract, but they do not always publish offense-level detail for every dataset and reporting choices—such as whether pending charges are tallied as “criminal”—can change interpretation; several watchdogs caution that public datasets still miss some DHS enforcement actions and federal criminal cases tied to immigration [6] [12]. Where interpretations diverge, the debate often reflects policy agendas: proponents of expanded enforcement emphasize arrests and pending charges to frame detainees as criminal, while advocates and researchers highlight conviction rates and offense types to argue the opposite [10] [13].
6. What this means for journalists, policymakers and the public
Readers should treat ICE/DHS categorical fields as administrative bookkeeping that distinguish convictions from pending charges and immigration-only cases, and not as a single, self‑explanatory measure of public safety; careful reporting requires citing whether a claim refers to arrests, custody snapshots, convictions, or pending charges, and recognizing that border referrals and administrative arrests materially shape the detention population [1] [7] [8]. The public record documents the categories and the numerical trends, but further clarity requires more granular offense-level publication and consistent labeling of “criminal” across DHS releases—shortcomings flagged by researchers and advocacy groups [2] [12].