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By Billal Rahman
Immigration Reporter
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Just one in three people arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President Donald Trump's second term had a prior criminal conviction, according to a new study.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined administrative data covering every ICE arrest over more than a decade and found that, while arrests surged under both Trump administrations, the share of those arrested who had criminal convictions declined significantly as enforcement activity increased under the GOP leader.
The research contrasts with long-standing messaging from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Trump administration, which has repeatedly described immigration enforcement efforts as targeting "the worst of the worst." The administration has frequently highlighted arrests of individuals convicted of crimes including murder, sex offenses and drug trafficking as evidence of its enforcement priorities.
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A DHS spokesperson told Newsweek the department "cannot verify the veracity of this data" used in the study.
The spokesperson said many individuals classified in the study as noncriminals may include "terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more" who do not have criminal records in the United States, and argued that entering the country illegally is itself a crime.
"70% of illegal aliens ICE arrested across the country have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges just in the U.S. This statistic doesn’t account for those wanted for violent crimes in their home country or another country, Interpol notices, human rights abusers, gang members, terrorists, etc. The list goes on," the spokesperson said.
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What The Data Shows
The analysis is one of the largest empirical examinations of U.S. immigration enforcement ever conducted. Researchers analyzed administrative records covering roughly 1.6 million ICE arrests between October 2015 and March 2026, allowing them to track changes in arrest patterns across the Obama, Biden, and both Trump administrations using the same underlying government data.
Researchers found that 34% of people arrested during Trump's second term had a criminal conviction, a figure they described as near a historic low. That marked a major decline from 52% during President Joe Biden's final year in office, 70% during the first year of Trump's first administration and 79% during President Barack Obama's final year.
"Our results reveal that the reality of immigration enforcement diverges sharply from the public narrative that ICE arrests are necessary to protect public safety by removing people who commit crimes," lead author Chloe East, an associate professor of economics at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a press release.
The report found that arrests increased substantially at the beginning of both Trump presidencies. During the first 14 months of Trump's first term, ICE made an average of 436 arrests per day, up 43% compared with Obama's final year, according to the study. During the first 14 months of Trump's second term, daily arrests averaged 952, representing a 214% increase from Biden's final year.
Researchers said the decline in the proportion of arrestees with criminal convictions was partly linked to changes in how ICE conducted operations. Historically, many arrests occurred when individuals were already in law enforcement custody.
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In January 2025, the Trump administration rescinded Biden-era guidance that had restricted immigration enforcement actions in or near sensitive locations and protected areas, including schools, hospitals, places of worship and public demonstrations.
The researchers said the rise in community arrests was one of the study's central findings. Community arrests are defined by the researchers as arrests in locations outside jails or prisons, including neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, airports and other public settings. They accounted for about 19% of arrests during Biden's final year but climbed to roughly 44% after Trump's return to office. Over the same period, arrests made through cooperation with local law enforcement agencies fell from about three-quarters of all arrests to just over half.
Meanwhile the paper said the share of people arrested with criminal convictions fell across both community arrests and arrests conducted with assistance from local law enforcement agencies.
"Within both methods (LEA and community arrests), the % with a conviction has plummeted to historic lows," co-author Caitlin Patler, an associate professor at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy, told Newsweek.
Patler said the trend was evident across much of the country, although enforcement tactics varied by region. Areas including Boston, Chicago, Newark, Seattle, St. Paul, Washington, D.C., and all ICE regions in California and New York experienced increases in community arrests during Trump's second term, which the authors said was "consistent with the administration's stated targeting of so-called sanctuary jurisdictions."
The paper argues that shifts in enforcement tactics alone do not fully explain the falling share of arrestees with criminal convictions. According to the authors, even when arrests were conducted using the same methods, the proportion of individuals with criminal convictions declined as arrest totals rose.
It comes as the Trump administration continues to pursue an expanded immigration enforcement agenda under a hard-line mass deportation policy.
The study does not examine whether individuals arrested without criminal convictions were accused of civil immigration violations or had pending criminal charges. Instead, it focuses specifically on whether arrestees had prior criminal convictions recorded in administrative data.
ICE arrests reached a monthly record high for Trump's second term in July, with the agency taking more than 46,000 people into custody for alleged immigration violations, including illegal entry and visa overstays, according to internal DHS data obtained by CBS News.
Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Matthew Cannon and Robert Greenall
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