ICE has kidnapped 100k people, killed 50 of them and raped who knows how many. Undocumented migrants have a violent crime rate of 1.9/100k
Executive summary
A torrent of allegations about ICE abuse — including claims that the agency “kidnapped 100,000 people, killed 50, and raped who knows how many” — cannot be verified as stated from the available reporting; independent investigations and news archives document hundreds of sexual‑abuse complaints, multiple deaths in custody, and systemic oversight gaps, but they do not support the precise numbers in the claim [1] [2] [3] [4]. Likewise, the specific figure “undocumented migrants have a violent crime rate of 1.9/100,000” does not appear in the collected sources; a broad body of peer‑reviewed and government research instead finds that undocumented immigrants on average have lower violent‑crime arrest rates than U.S.‑born residents [5] [6] [7].
1. What the reporting actually documents about sexual abuse and assault in ICE custody
Scholarly and investigative reporting documents hundreds of sexual‑assault allegations filed by detainees and patterns of underreporting, inconsistent investigations, and failures of oversight across ICE facilities; a study that digitized ICE’s Facility Significant Incident Reports analyzed allegations from 2018–2022 and warned these official counts likely understate prevalence because detainees fear retaliation or lack awareness of reporting channels [1]. News investigations and civil‑rights groups have also detailed recurring complaints, including clusters linked to individual staffers and facilities, with advocates noting that most complaints go uninvestigated or are not substantiated in public records — a pattern reported by PBS and the ACLU [2] [8].
2. Deaths, neglect, and official responses: confirmed instances versus sweeping assertions
Multiple oversight reports and media accounts confirm that people have died and suffered severe medical neglect in immigration custody — for example, congressional and NGO reviews compiling hundreds of reports of abuse and neglect and local reporting of deaths in custody — but these sources describe case counts and systemic failure points rather than an indisputable nationwide tally of 50 murders by ICE [9] [3] [10]. The Department of Homeland Security has at times publicly disputed specific political claims about conditions, and ICE points to prevention programs like its SAAPI/PREA compliance efforts as evidence of safeguards, underscoring a contested terrain between watchdog findings and agency assertions [11] [12].
3. “Kidnapped 100k”: detention and arrest statistics don’t map neatly to that label
ICE and CBP regularly publish arrest and detention statistics — which document that tens of thousands of people enter ICE custody in given fiscal periods — and journalists archive those releases, but raw arrest/detention counts don’t equate to lawful or unlawful “kidnapping,” and the sources provided show routine publication of detention metrics without endorsing the kidnapping charge [13] [14]. Oversight reporting highlights problematic detentions, abusive practices, and forcible transfers in some cases, but the sources do not substantiate an illicit, systemic program of abduction totaling 100,000 people as an evidentiary fact [4] [15].
4. The claim that undocumented migrants have a violent crime rate of 1.9/100k is inconsistent with mainstream research
Major empirical studies and government‑funded research indicate undocumented immigrants are arrested at lower rates for violent crimes than native‑born Americans: an NIJ‑funded analysis of Texas records found undocumented people were arrested at less than half the rate of native‑born citizens for violent and drug crimes, and policy analysts and migration researchers broadly conclude immigrants have lower crime and arrest rates on average [5] [6] [7]. The exact metric “1.9 per 100,000” for violent crime among undocumented migrants does not appear in the provided sources; absent a clear citation, that precise figure should be treated as unverified by this reporting [5] [7].
5. How to read competing narratives and what’s left unresolved
Advocacy organizations and congressional investigators emphasize systemic abuse, medical neglect, and accountability failures in detention [3] [9], while DHS and ICE highlight compliance programs and dispute some political claims [11] [12]; both perspectives carry institutional agendas — watchdogs press for reform and transparency, the agency defends operations and procedures — and the empirical record supports serious problems (hundreds of allegations, documented neglect, some confirmed criminal prosecutions) without endorsing the sensational aggregate numbers in the user’s opening sentence or the unreferenced 1.9/100k crime rate [1] [2] [4] [5]. Reporting gaps remain: precise nationwide tallies of unreported sexual assaults in custody, the causal chain behind each death in detention, and a single authoritative violent‑crime incidence figure limited to undocumented people are not resolved in the provided sources, and further FOIA audits, court records, and peer‑reviewed epidemiological work would be required to produce those exact counts.