Decline in ICE Detainees with Criminal Records Could Shape Agency’s Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

The latest available data indicate that most civil immigrant detainees held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) do not have a single criminal conviction. In March 2020, in fact, more than six out of ten (61.2%) had no conviction, not even for a minor petty offense. The latest detailed case-by-case records obtained and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University also reveal that even among immigrant detainees who have a conviction, few of these convictions are for what ICE labels as serious crimes where individuals are thought to pose a threat to public safety. Just one in ten (10.7%) detainees, less than 6,000 detainees nationwide, have a serious criminal conviction on record as of July 2019-a five-year low. TRAC also found that the proportion of detainees with criminal records varies widely across ICE’s nationwide network of detention facilities. See newly updated details here.

These findings continue trends and confirm results on ICE detention practices previously reported by TRAC in its two-part series published last November and December.

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KJ