How many people that ice has deported under trump had a criminal record
Executive summary
There is no single, undisputed tally of how many people deported by ICE under President Trump had criminal records; official DHS figures and sympathetic outlets describe majorities with criminal histories, while independent datasets and journalism show large and growing shares with no convictions or only immigration violations, producing widely divergent estimates depending on definitions and timeframes [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. The truth lies in the data's seams: differences between “arrests” and “removals,” between “charges,” “convictions” and “violent convictions,” and between CBP, ICE and self-deportation tallies yield ranges rather than a single count [5] [7] [8].
1. The administration’s headline numbers: majorities and millions
The Department of Homeland Security and administration allies present a clear, simple narrative: a large majority of those targeted and removed are criminal aliens, with DHS announcing figures such as more than 670,000 removals in a year and claiming roughly 70% of ICE arrests were of people charged with or convicted of crimes [2] [1]. Early administration messaging also insisted that almost three-quarters of at-large arrests in the first weeks were of accused or convicted criminals and promoted the deportation totals as evidence of focusing on the “worst of the worst” [9] [2].
2. Independent datasets tell a different story: many had no conviction
Analysts using nonpublic ICE data processed by the Deportation Data Project, Cato Institute, university teams and major news outlets found that large shares of people ICE apprehended or held did not have criminal convictions — sometimes a majority — and that arrests of people with no criminal record surged dramatically [4] [5] [7] [6]. For example, Cato reported that 65% of those detained had no criminal convictions and the New York Times documented that deportations of people with no criminal record rose more than sixfold in rate comparisons across periods [4] [5]. Reporting compiled by the American Immigration Council and Stateline highlighted vast increases in detentions of people without criminal records and a collapse in the share of convicted criminals among ICE arrests [6] [10].
3. Conflicting tallies reflect three technical gaps in the reporting
The contradictory claims arise from three definitional gaps: who counts as “deported” (CBP expulsions, ICE removals, returns, or programmatic “self-deportations”), what counts as a “criminal record” (a prior conviction versus pending charge versus immigration-related offense), and which timeframe and sample are used (first weeks, interior arrests, or total removals) — each choice alters the headline share by tens of percentage points [5] [3] [8]. Media and advocacy groups warn many datasets conflate arrests with final removals or include custodial arrests that occurred after local jail bookings, skewing interpretation of how many people deported had prior convictions [11] [3].
4. How to reconcile the range: a cautious, evidence-based estimate
Given the conflicting sources, the most defensible statement is a qualified range: administration sources and allied analysts assert that roughly two-thirds to 70% of ICE arrests or removals involved people with criminal charges or convictions [1] [3], while independent analyses of ICE’s internal arrest and detention data show that substantial shares — often around one-half or more in some snapshots — had no criminal convictions, with estimates of tens of thousands arrested without records in short intervals [4] [7] [8]. Therefore, depending on the dataset and definition, the proportion of people deported by ICE under Trump who had criminal records plausibly falls somewhere between roughly 30% and 70% — not a precise count, but a realistic bracket supported by the provided reporting [2] [4] [5].
5. What this means for reporting and policy debates
The dispute is not just statistical hair-splitting: framing determines political legitimacy and resource allocation, and different actors have clear incentives — DHS to emphasize criminality, advocacy and academic projects to highlight non-criminal detentions — so readers must judge claims against the underlying definitions and sources [2] [6] [11]. The assembled reporting makes one point plain: the surge in interior enforcement and detention under Trump produced both many arrests of people with criminal histories and a concurrent, sharp rise in arrests and deportations that targeted people without convictions, undercutting simple slogans that ICE removals were uniformly limited to the “worst of the worst” [5] [6] [12].