What proportion of ICE detainees had prior deportation or reentry convictions compared with U.S. criminal convictions in 2025–2026?

1. What the headline numbers say: most detainees had no U.S. criminal conviction

Point-in-time tallies and journalistic analyses from 2025 show a consistent pattern: a minority of detainees had prior criminal convictions—MinnPost summarized ICE figures indicating about 29% had convictions while 71% did not ^[1], Fortune reported a similar snapshot that 71.7% of detainees had no criminal convictions as of June 29, 2025 ^[2], and analysts citing Cato and TRAC put the share with criminal offenses in the mid-30s percent range depending on the time window and definitions used ^{[3] [5]}.

2. Why the simple “criminal vs. not” split understates complexity

ICE’s own public categorization groups detained people into those with criminal convictions, those with pending criminal charges, and a third group labeled as having no convictions or charges but who have violated immigration law—including visa overstays, immigration fugitives and people who repeatedly reentered after deportation—so the “no convictions” headline mixes disparate legal circumstances and does not by itself identify who was detained for prior reentry convictions specifically ^[4].

3. What the reporting and datasets actually document

Investigative data releases and FOIA-driven datasets analyzed by outlets and research groups (Deportation Data Project/NYT, Prison Policy Initiative, TRAC, Cato) document rising shares of immigration-only detentions through 2025 and point-in-time counts showing tens of thousands detained with no recorded criminal conviction; The New York Times and the Deportation Data Project found the share of detainees with convictions fell substantially under the most recent enforcement surge, and Prison Policy flagged state-by-state variation including many local arrests where people had pending charges but no prior convictions ^{[6] [7] [8]}.

4. The data gap on prior deportation/reentry convictions

None of the supplied sources provides a clean, national percentage that isolates “prior deportation or reentry convictions” from other immigration-only reasons within the “no convictions” bucket; ICE’s public schema includes reentry-after-deportation as part of the no-conviction group but does not publish a disaggregated national share for that subcategory in the materials supplied here, so it is not possible, based on these sources, to state a precise proportion of detainees whose detention was due specifically to prior deportation or reentry convictions versus other immigration infractions ^{[4] [7]}.

5. Competing narratives and institutional incentives

Political actors defending enforcement emphasize counts that lump convictions and pending charges together to portray detainees as “criminal illegal aliens,” while watchdogs and civil‑liberty groups emphasize the large share with no criminal convictions to argue enforcement is sweeping up immigration violations and reentries ^{[2] [3]}; the datasets and analyses cited here reflect both coding limitations from ICE and advocacy-driven interpretation choices—Cato and TRAC focus on the nonconvicted majority to criticize policy, while DHS officials have pushed broader definitions to justify operations ^{[9] [2] [3]}.

6. Bottom line — direct answer to the question

Based on available 2025 data reported and analyzed by multiple organizations, roughly 29–35% of ICE detainees had recorded U.S. criminal convictions, while about 65–72% had no recorded criminal conviction; however, the exact share detained because of prior deportation or reentry convictions cannot be isolated from the “no convictions” category with the data provided because ICE’s public breakdown bundles reentry-after-deportation cases with other immigration-only reasons and the sources here do not supply a disaggregated national figure ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}.