What percentage of ICE agents have prior criminal convictions compared to previous years?
Executive summary
The available reporting does not provide a direct answer to how many ICE agents have prior criminal convictions; the documents supplied focus overwhelmingly on the criminal histories of people detained by ICE, not on the agency’s own workforce (limitation of reporting) [1] [2]. Independent investigations and news reports document serious allegations and some prosecutions of individual ICE officers, but there is no systematic percentage or time-series in these sources showing the share of ICE agents with criminal convictions over time [3] [4].
1. What the question actually asks — and what the sources actually show
The user’s question appears to seek a personnel-vetting statistic about ICE agents, but the dataset provided and most contemporary coverage instead quantify the criminal histories of people detained by ICE: several nonpartisan trackers reported that roughly 71–74 percent of people in ICE detention in 2025 had no criminal convictions, a point repeatedly documented by TRAC and TRAC-based reporting [1] [2] [5]. Multiple analyses therefore discuss shifts in enforcement targets, not the criminal records of ICE employees themselves [6] [7].
2. Numbers about detainees that get mistaken for agent data
By late 2025, TRAC and related trackers reported that approximately 72–73.6 percent of people held in ICE detention had no criminal conviction; TRAC gave figures like 42,755 of 59,762 (about 72%) as of September 21, 2025, and TRAC-derived quick facts put 48,377 of 65,735 (73.6%) as of November 30, 2025 [2] [1]. Independent commentators and think tanks echoed this finding: MinnPost summarized agency data showing about 29% of detained people had convictions while 71% did not, and Stateline and other outlets documented the falling share of detainees with convictions through 2025 [5] [8].
3. Trends and context in detainee-conviction rates — not agent convictions
Reporting shows a clear trend in 2025: as ICE detention numbers rose, the growth was driven overwhelmingly by people without prior criminal convictions or only immigration-related offenses, with some analysts estimating that 72–92 percent of detention growth was among non‑convicted individuals [6] [9]. Researchers note local variations — for example, New York and New Jersey showed markedly different shares of arrests involving pending charges versus convictions — and caution that ICE sometimes counts pending charges or minor infractions as “criminal” in its public tallies [10] [7].
4. What reporting says about criminal conduct by ICE agents — isolated incidents, no workforce-wide rate
There are documented cases of serious misconduct by individual ICE agents, including convictions and arrests in specific instances — for example, federal prosecutions of an agent in Ohio and a widely reported shooting in Minneapolis — and investigative reporting has found that ICE shootings rarely, if ever, have led to criminal indictments historically [4] [3] [11]. These pieces demonstrate accountability questions but do not supply a numerator/denominator that would allow calculation of “percentage of ICE agents with prior criminal convictions” or a multi‑year comparison of that rate [3] [4].
5. Why the exact answer cannot be produced from these sources
None of the supplied sources includes a roster-level, personnel-vetting dataset for ICE employees that lists prior criminal convictions or tracks that share over time; the available public statistics are about detainees and enforcement patterns, not internal HR adjudications or historic conviction rates among agents [1] [12]. Studies and news investigations point to individual prosecutions and suggest problems in oversight, but without a comprehensive dataset from ICE, DHS, or a vetted FOIA release, a precise percentage and year‑to‑year comparison for agents cannot be calculated from the materials provided [3] [4].
6. Bottom line and what would be needed to answer definitively
The sources show clear, documented shifts in whom ICE detains — with roughly 70–74 percent of detainees in late 2025 lacking criminal convictions — and they document notable cases of agent misconduct; however, they do not answer the specific personnel question posed about ICE agents’ own prior convictions, and therefore no claim about the percentage of agents with convictions now or compared to previous years can be supported from these reports [1] [2] [3]. A definitive answer would require access to ICE/DHS personnel records or an authoritative audit documenting past convictions among current or former agents and a comparable historical series, none of which appears in the supplied reporting [12].