ICE Arrest Data Reveals a Sharp Shift Away From Targeting Criminals

The Promise vs. The Reality

Since Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, immigration enforcement has been a centerpiece of his platform. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to prioritize deporting what he repeatedly described as "the worst of the worst" — people in the U.S. without authorization who were convicted or accused of serious crimes. But a deep dive into federal arrest data tells a strikingly different story, especially in Texas.

The Houston Chronicle examined ICE arrest records obtained through the Deportation Data Project using the Freedom of Information Act and found that after an initial focus on immigrants with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, ICE increasingly shifted its attention toward people whose only known violation was related to immigration itself. That shift has massive implications for millions of people living in the country — and for the credibility of the administration's stated goals.

The Numbers Behind the Shift

Between February 2025 and February 2026, more than 38,000 people in Texas without criminal convictions or pending charges were arrested by ICE — more than either those with criminal convictions or those facing pending criminal charges. That's not a small anomaly. That's a majority of arrests in one of the country's largest states going to people with no criminal record whatsoever.

Houston Chronicle reporter Julián Aguilar noted that the data shifts after the first four months of Trump's second term. "Initially, it sounded like they were keeping to the president's campaign promise to go after 'the worst of the worst' and criminals," he said. "Then there was a dramatic shift into what ICE calls 'other immigration violators,' which are people with no pending charges and no criminal convictions." Immigration attorneys, Aguilar added, argue the government is doing this to pad its arrest statistics.

Data from the Deportation Data Project shows that ICE's average daily arrests in Texas have more than doubled, from 85 under Biden to 176 under Trump. About 52% of ICE arrests have been of people in local jails, down from 61% during the Biden administration, while arrests of people who had not been convicted of a crime have increased from 42% under Biden to 59% under Trump.

Who Exactly Is Being Swept Up

Immigration advocates point out that many of the people being arrested are detained at meetings that are part of the formal asylum process — people who are simply showing up to check in, with asylum claims that came in during the Biden administration or even the first Trump administration. These are individuals who voluntarily reported to authorities on a regular basis, hardly the profile of dangerous criminals evading law enforcement.

Immigration lawyers describe these individuals as "low-hanging fruit," asking why people would turn themselves into ICE — checking in every few months or weeks — if they had a criminal charge in the country they came from. Among those deported from detention in 2025, just 2% were tagged as suspected gang members in ICE's data, and among those who did have a criminal conviction, the majority — 64% — had nothing more serious than a misdemeanor.

The Government's Pushback — and What Comes Next

The Department of Homeland Security disputes the implication of these numbers, arguing the data is being presented in a misleading way. DHS says nearly 70% of ICE arrests nationwide involve what it calls "criminal illegal aliens," and has also argued that some people classified as non-criminals may have committed crimes outside the U.S. that don't show up in American criminal records. Critics counter that this claim is nearly impossible to verify without cross-referencing criminal histories in other countries.

Congress approved $170 billion for immigration enforcement aimed at expanding immigrant detention centers and hiring as many as 10,000 additional ICE agents by the end of the year — which would more than double its current staffing of 6,500 agents — with recruits enticed by a $50,000 signing bonus. "As those new officers come on, that is inevitably going to lead to a major increase in arrests," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council. With that kind of institutional expansion underway, the gap between the administration's rhetoric and the data on the ground is likely to grow even wider — and more consequential for communities across Texas and the nation.