Per centage arrested by ICE that are violent
Executive summary
Independent analyses of ICE arrest data put the share of people with violent criminal convictions very low—roughly in the mid-single digits—while government statements emphasize a much larger share of “criminal” arrests without specifying violent crimes, creating a sharp divergence in how the statistics are framed [1] [2] [3]. Local operations can diverge from national averages—Minnesota reporting found about 5.2% of recent ICE arrests were violent offenders—but the federal agencies’ public claims often conflate convictions, charges, and prior records in ways that obscure the violent-offender share [4] [3].
1. What the independent data show: only a few percent are violent convictions
Researchers and watchdogs analyzing ICE’s arrest and detention datasets have concluded that the fraction of people arrested by ICE who have an actual violent conviction is small—estimates center around 5–7%—with Cato’s analysis and reporting cited by the Brennan Center concluding roughly 7% convicted of violent offenses and similar work pointing to about 5% in some datasets [1] [2]. Trac and other monitoring groups also highlight that a large majority of those in ICE custody have no criminal convictions at all—Trac reported roughly 73.6% of people in ICE detention had no criminal conviction as of late November 2025—underscoring that the violent-conviction category is a small subset of a much larger detention population [5].
2. How DHS and ICE frame the numbers: emphasis on “criminal” but not necessarily violent
Department of Homeland Security and ICE public statements frame enforcement as targeting the “worst of the worst” and frequently tout figures like “70% of ICE arrests are of criminal illegal aliens,” but those releases mix convictions, pending charges, and previous records without always breaking out violent convictions separately—press statements list examples of recent arrests for serious violent crimes while offering a broader “criminal” headline that can mislead about the share who are violent offenders [3] [6]. ICE’s own historical descriptions show ERO commonly arrests people with convictions for DUI, drug possession, assault and traffic offenses, which again demonstrates a mix of non-violent and violent categories and complicates any simple “violent percent” headline [7].
3. Local operations and short-term surges can skew perceptions
Local surge operations produce statistics that look different from long-term national averages: a Minnesota ICE operation reported that 103 of 212 “worst of the worst” were violent, and that violent convictions made up 5.2% of more than 2,000 arrests in recent weeks—numbers that match the low-single-digit violent-conviction pattern but can be amplified in DHS narratives about dangerous criminals removed from communities [4]. Independent reporting has also highlighted incidents of aggressive tactics and controversial arrests during these operations, which can further shape public impressions of the violent-offender share even when the underlying percentages remain small [8].
4. Why the numbers diverge and what that means for interpretation
The core reason for divergent figures is categorical: agencies often report “criminal arrests” that include pending charges, nonviolent convictions, and civil-traffic offenses, while researchers focus on confirmed convictions for violent crimes; that definitional gap explains why one source can say a large majority of arrests are “criminal” while independent analyses show only about 5–7% are violent convictions [1] [2] [7]. Data transparency is limited—ICE’s public dashboards and press releases do not always supply the disaggregated breakdown by conviction type, and leaked or FOIA-obtained datasets used by policy groups are necessary to produce the lower violent-conviction estimates [1] [5].
5. Bottom line for the question “Percentage arrested by ICE that are violent”
Based on available independent analyses and local reporting in the provided material, the best-supported estimate is that people with violent convictions represent about 5–7% of those arrested by ICE, while a far larger share of arrests are classified as “criminal” in agency statements because they include nonviolent convictions, pending charges, or administrative violations; the DHS/ICE public claims of high criminal shares do not equate to a high share of violent convictions and require cautious interpretation given differing definitions and incomplete public data [1] [2] [3] [5].