In the left’s never-ending crusade to undermine President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda, elected Democrats and the liberal media are pushing the narrative that most of the illegal aliens being deported have “not committed any crimes.” But that claim breaks down under even the most basic scrutiny, and is instead just another attempt to convince the public to accept mass amnesty and ultimately citizenship for every illegal alien.
First and foremost, the claim that any illegal alien has not committed a crime is, by definition, false. Crossing the border illegally is a violation of U.S. law and a threat to American sovereignty. Overstaying a visa is indeed a civil rather than criminal offense in most cases, as liberals so often remind us. But tax fraud, insider trading, and welfare fraud are also “civil” offenses. Are we to believe that someone who steals Medicaid funds from the taxpayer is also not a criminal?
Moreover, the data used to suggest that most deportees are “not criminals” is itself suspect. For years, liberals have relied on the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) to compile data on immigration and deportations. The Syracuse University-based center previously broke down immigration arrests by those who had a criminal record in addition to entering or remaining in the country illegally and those who had not.
A criminal record could include pending charges for crimes, not just convictions. This distinction is important because it helps explain why the federal government is moving swiftly to remove some people from the country.
But now, TRAC has changed its data to exclude pending charges and accusations from how it labels deportees.
As Sean Kennedy, the policy director for the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund told Just the News, the database “used to say anyone with a criminal record or criminal arrest was in the criminal category, and then they would break it down and say, he’s [got] a criminal conviction, he’s under pending charges, or whatever.”
“They just took the pending charges number out,” Kennedy continued. “So, when CNN goes and reports it out, they say, oh, only 30 percent have convictions… What a low bar.”
Kennedy illustrates an important point about the danger of using misleading statistics. Whenever the media reports on their latest immigrant sob story, no matter if the claims are true or not, they can place the story within the larger context of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents supposedly deporting mostly non-violent criminals.
An Axios report from last year is indicative of this deceptive practice. “An estimated 58,800 immigrants were in long-term ICE detention centers nationwide as of Sept. 7,” the outlet claimed, citing TRAC data. “The majority had no criminal convictions.”
CBS News also infamously claimed that only “14 percent” of deportees were violent criminals. This misleading stat comes from an FBI definition of violent crime which omits malicious activities like “drug trafficking, human smuggling, child porn, fraud, DUI, [and] burglary,” according to the White House’s media team.
Even including all of those charges would not account for people wanted in their own country for violent crimes who came here to escape arrest. Just prior to the 2024 election, a shocking ICE report found that an astonishing 13,000 non-citizens with prior homicide convictions were living freely in the United States.
Under the absurd definitions used by the liberal media and the so-called “fact-checkers,” individuals like Jose Gustavo Angulo Bernal would be considered “non-violent.” In early April, ICE agents arrested Bernal, who is “wanted for killing a woman in Mexico” in 2018.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pointed out that Bernal, living in Arizona at the time, is one of those supposedly “non-violent” deportees heralded by the media. “Jose Gustavo Angulo Bernal is a cold-blooded killer and an example of who the media often refer to as a ‘non-criminals,’ [sic] because they only have heinous convictions in their home country,” Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told Fox News.
DHS maintains that “nearly 70 percent of ICE arrests have been convicted or charged with a crime in the United States,” but “actual arrests of public safety threats and criminals are much higher.”
Still, even some Republican politicians have pushed the fake talking point that most illegal aliens being arrested and deported are nonviolent. This shockingly naïve embrace of the liberal narrative on deportations is a major reason why some GOP House members have supported mass amnesty, as AMAC Newsline recently reported.
Critics may argue that even if 70 percent of deportees have criminal records, that still means 30 percent or so do not, excepting those wanted in their home country for crimes. However, this argument ignores a few key points.
First, in many cases U.S. authorities have no way of knowing if someone has a history of criminal activity or not. Many countries where illegal aliens come from have notoriously corrupt police forces or poor record-keeping, making it nearly impossible to know for certain if someone is a threat.
Second, someone who has entered or remained in the country illegally has already shown a propensity to ignore our laws. They are not deserving of the “benefit of the doubt.”
Third, and perhaps most importantly, just because someone is “non-violent” is nowhere close to a good enough reason to give them a pass for breaking federal law. Even if an illegal alien does not commit a crime, granting him amnesty sends a message to the rest of the world that borders are meaningless and following the law is optional.
Fourth, illegal aliens also undercut American wages and drive up the cost of housing, which steals opportunities for native-born Americans and lawful immigrants. While not physical violence, this wreaks havoc on the economy and the American Dream itself.
The only logical solution is to continue deporting illegal migrants en masse and to send a strong message to future would-be lawbreakers that their criminal activities will not be tolerated.
Matt Lamb is an AMAC Newsline contributor and associate editor for The College Fix. He previously worked for Students for Life of America, Students for Life Action, and Turning Point USA. He previously interned for Open the Books. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, LifeSiteNews, Human Life Review, Headline USA, and other outlets. The opinions expressed are his own. Follow him @mattlamb22 on X.
