Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently responded to Rep. Tony Gonzalez’s (R‑TX) question on the number of noncitizen criminals on ICE’s docket for removal (deportation) from the United States. The data in the letter have blown up in a big way during the presidential election cycle, with former President Trump highlighting the letter’s contents at recent rallies and Vice President Harris struggling to respond.
Commentators focused on the letter’s claim that ICE did not detain 13,099 migrants convicted of homicide, but they tended to misunderstand the data. Even former President Trump distorted the evidence by claiming that the criminals all entered during the Biden administration. Those commentators and former President Trump are making several untrue claims about the new ICE data. The following will correct the record.
The first untrue claim about the data is that the 13,099 non-detained migrants convicted of homicide are free to roam the United States. That is not true. Migrants incarcerated for homicide are considered “non-detained” by ICE when they are in state or federal prisons. When ICE uses the term “non-detained,” they mean not currently detained by ICE. In other words, the migrant murderers included in the letter are overwhelmingly in prison serving their sentences. After they serve their sentences, the government transfers them onto ICE’s docket for removal from the United States.
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