How ICE Officials Defend Their Agency’s Work
This is the second in a series of blogs on ICE and immigration policy.
Finger printing at a facility in Florida,public domain photo.
By Jo-Ann Johnston
The coming midterm elections could be an important indication of how many voters are tired of Trump administration policies such as its highly touted, but controversial, approach to immigration enforcement and deportation.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a presidential cabinet-level agency and parent to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) organization, has been the major source of oversight for ICE. Another government body with oversight responsibilities, the Republican-controlled Congress, has been willing to spend billions of dollars -– $171 billion over four years, in fact — on ICE operations.
As for ICE itself at this juncture, the agency seems poised to keep moving forward as it has been, with more technology. Its media releases say it is delivering greater safety to American communities.
Along those lines, the agency has announced it wants its officers to be able to wear electric shock gloves that are described as useful de-escalation tools.(1) Officers could put them on, for instance, to deliver a shock to a violent suspect resisting arrest — instead of drawing a weapon.
But the general public doesn’t know yet if some officers would misuse the devices and hurt people who are physically vulnerable. The agency expects to pay $10 million to $20 million under a no-bid contract for the devices.(2)
The agency has also said it will equip its officers with body-worn cameras for recording, as many other law enforcement agencies have done, but will only agree to release the footage when it suits ICE’s own best interest. (3) That didn’t register as a step toward transparency to the American Civil Liberties Union, a frequent critic of ICE in courts and via press releases. (4)
DHS and ICE tout productivity statistics
The Department of Homeland Security would not agree with the critiques of its and ICES’ work leveled by ACLU supporters, other migrant advocacy groups, and political rivals. We know this from looking at dhs.gov, its website. There, it posts a steady stream of news and photographic releases showing the recent arrests that demonstrate DHS and ICE are successfully carrying out their mission — and suggests we should trust DHS and ICE.
A Sept. 2, 2026 release, for instance, was newsworthy (5) because it showed that ICE’s tally for nationwide arrests in the month of August had risen to 50,925, a record that surpassed both July and June, which had also each been record-breaking months. “This is promises made and promises kept in action,” reads part of a quote from DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “Under President Trump’s leadership, ICE is working around the clock every day to arrest and deport illegal aliens from American communities,” the release continued.
Three million people have left since the second Trump administration began, the release added.
Information was also included on a financial incentive to self-deport, a process that can be started with a new smartphone app. “Being in detention is a choice. The United States is offering illegal aliens $3,000 and a free flight to self-deport now with the CBP Home App.”
The ICE release ended with photos and brief statements showing a handful of individuals who had recently been deported, their reported criminal convictions according to the government, and the places they are leaving.
ICE also regularly produces a steady stream of shorter releases on deportation cases with convictions and prior communities listed for its website. Favorite slogans of the administration are repeated in parts of headlines, including “Worst of the Worst” and “Make America Safe Again.”
Every agency or organization, public or private, can be expected to tout its successes on its own websites, as ICE does. And agency officials want the public to be proud of immigration officers and essentially to cheer them on, a sentiment echoed on comment boards and social media by supporters.
ICE and DHS officials also want local law enforcement agencies to help them at times with functions such as road patrols or use of county jail space. There is even a program where ICE/DHS gives local departments money if they help with making immigration arrests, which turns out to be a boost to tight local law enforcement budgets. (6)
But decisions vary by geography and with political affiliations.
New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul, however, does not want local departments assisting ICE, and through her efforts, the state now has a law banning the practice, even though some local sheriffs liked the cooperation. (7) New York claims sizable immigrant populations in some cities, especially New York City, and Hochul said she didn’t want to have policies in place that could make immigrant communities afraid to communicate with police about local crime.
So many factors about favoring or not favoring the spread of ICE operations and involvement in an area can make those decisions tricky.
But here’s a reasonable question to start with: are those at risk of arrest and apprehension really the people society should be worried about if we are genuinely following the “worst of the worst” philosophy? Or are they hardworking migrants, as Joan Sebastian Duran Guerrero was in Maine, before he was shot by an ICE officer who seemingly had problems serious enough to warrant not hiring him?
Who winds up in ICE detention?
It turns out that there are ways – subject to a time lag – to find out what percentage of people in custody have criminal records. Depending upon the circumstances, it can be a civil infraction – rather than a crime– to be in the country without the right paperwork.(8)
Granted, that distinction does not matter to some people. To others, the absence of an actual criminal record means a person has so far shown themselves to be lawful, and often trying to navigate a dysfunctional, sometimes contradictory U.S. legal system.
According to a federal-data research center, of the 65,765 people held in ICE detention facilities on July 11, 2026, 70.6% had no criminal convictions.(9) Additionally, many of those convicted had committed minor offenses, such as traffic violations, according to the center, TRAC, or the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
TRAC uses the Freedom of Information Act and other methods to collect data reliably from various federal agencies for long-term study. It has been studying ICE for 15 years.
While the high percentage of detainees with clean records will surprise some, others have found similar results.
Longtime U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko of Albany, NY, traveled west across the upstate region in August 2026 to the Buffalo (Batavia) Federal Detention Facility. He had been denied entry in 2025. ICE Batavia already has 650 beds for male ICE detainees and plans to add more.
I spoke with one man with no criminal history who said that he was actively pursuing a path to U.S. citizenship when he was suddenly picked up by ICE agents,” Tonko said. “I saw far more detainees than not who had no criminal history whatsoever. ICE’s own data confirms that, for every one detainee at Batavia who has a criminal record, there are five or six detainees with no record at all, violent or non-violent.”
These results are also not surprising to people who have been studying patterns of immigration into American communities for some time. They include volunteers here at We Are NEXT who have written recommendations for a new immigration policy for America.
Citing federal statistics from economists and criminal justice experts, our policy developers wrote: “Despite lacking legal status, undocumented immigrants are overwhelmingly peaceful, law-abiding residents. Multiple studies confirm that immigrants are significantly less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens and are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens. In fact, unauthorized immigration is correlated with no discernible effect on violent crime rates.”(10)
Government’s prior-year claims show a flipped picture
DHS, in a wide-ranging June 30, 2025 release, took the media to task for reporting supposedly bad information or fake narratives about ICE. One complaint was that a report stated, “Less than 10% of Immigrants taken into ICE Custody since October [2024] had Serious Criminal Convictions.” The release went on to say that “during President Trump’s first 100 days, 70% of ICE arrests were criminal illegal aliens with convictions or pending charges.” (11)
The percentage points in the statistics that TRAC and that Rep. Tonko provided to We Are NEXT are far apart from the statistics DHS complained of seeing in 2025, however. Recall that TRAC said of the most recent population, 70% lacked criminal convictions, (12) while the government said a year and a month prior, as noted above, that 70% had charges pending or convictions already. (13)
This is not the only large variance in what is being reported about people arrested by ICE and how many have criminal records. It has happened with media outlets using government data from sources other than DHS, such as the independent Data Deportation Project, and then analyzing it. The media’s analysis shows the percentages of people with criminal records are significantly lower than ones reported by DHS. A nonprofit website created to research misinformation called FactCheck.org released a story, published by Roll Call (14) in January 2026 explaining the recurring issue.
In a recent example, an August story in The Washington Post, which used data from an independent group obtained through a formal Freedom of Information Act request, reported that more than half (15) the people arrested by ICE in July did not have a criminal record. But a DHS spokesman contacted for the story by the Post emailed the outlet and “claimed that nearly 70 percent of the people ICE has arrested have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, a figure the agency has cited repeatedly since last year.’’(16)
Footnotes
Ngo, M. and Dewan, S. (1016, Aug. 12). “ICE Plans to Give Officers Gloves That Can Deliver Electric Shocks.” The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/us/politics/ice-gloves-shock.html
Bragg, J. (2026, Aug. 12). “ICE plans to spend up to $20 million on electrical shock gloves for agents.” CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/12/us/ice-electrical-shock-gloves-agents-hnk
Foley, R.J.(2026, Aug. 7). “ICE will only release body camera video when it is in the agency's ‘best interests,’ policy says." The Associated Press on PBS News Hour. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/ice-will-only-release-body-camera-video-when-in-agencys-best-interests-policy-says
Stanley, J. (2026, Aug. 11.) “ICE Agents to Wear Body Cameras But the Fix is In.” ACLU News & Commentary. https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/ice-agents-to-wear-body-cameras-but-the-fix-is-in
Ainsley, J. and Stricker, L. (2026, Sept. 1). “ICE arrested 50,000 people in August, continuing record pace.” NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-arrests-50-thousand-people-august-continuing-record-rcna595510.
Guzman, L. (2026, April 24). “A year in, NH police departments receive over $300,000 from ICE greements.” New Hampshire Public Radio News.. https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2026-04-24/nh-police-departments-ice-money-stipend-287g-immigration
WGRZ Staff. (2026, Aug. 25). “New York law banning local police-ICE agreements takes effect.” WGRZ TV/NBC https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/new-york/new-yorks-local-cops-local-crimes-act-takes-effect-ending-287g-agreements/71-01bd1500-a14c-456e-a719-dc6076cb3fae
Snider, B. (2019, May 31). “Is Illegal Immigration a Crime? Improper Entry v. Unlawful Presence.” FindLaw.com https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/is-illegal-immigration-a-crime-improper-entry-v-unlawful-presence/#:~:text=To%20be%20clear%2C%20the%20most,alien%20(i.e.%2C%20a%20non%2Dcitizen)%20to%3A
TRAC Immigration. (2026). “Immigration Detention Quick Facts.’’ TRAC Reports Inc.
https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/Sassa, L. and Schell, A. (2026). “10 Steps to Immediately Reform Immigration Policy in 2029.” We Are Next (formerly Project2029.me) .https://www.project2029.me/10-steps-to-immediately-reform-us-immigration-policy-in-2029#step9
U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2025, June 30). “DHS Debunks Fake News Media Narratives from June.” U.S. Government Website. https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/06/30/dhs-debunks-fake-news-media-narratives-june
TRAC data cited above in Note 9.
DHS data, note 9.
Farley, R. (2026, Jan. 30). “As ICE arrests increased, a higher portion had no U.S. criminal record.” FactCheck.org, appearing in Roll Call. https://rollcall.com/2026/01/30/as-ice-arrests-increased-a-higher-portion-had-no-u-s-criminal-record/
Nakamura, D. and Martinez, E. (2026, Aug. 28). “How ICE is arresting soaring numbers of immigrants with no criminal records.” The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/08/28/how-ice-arrests-immigrants-with-no-criminal-record-are-soaring-under-trump/
Nakamura and Martinez, same as in the note above.
Could Voting Places Become Props for ICE Appearances?
Unsplash photo of a polling station sign
By Jo-Ann Johnston
Strangely, questions about the right role of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (and other federal resources) have now ventured into the topic of polling places for the midterm elections.
That has happened because President Trump and other officials have floated the idea of sending ICE officers or even military or other federal resources into polling places at the coming midterm elections.(1) Admittedly, the signals have been mixed: maybe and no.
The purpose? Various Republican candidates have suggested the sight of men with guns could dissuade migrants without legal status from trying to come and vote unlawfully. Or ICE might need to come and serve a specific arrest warrant on a suspect, Trump officials have suggested. (2)
Democrats and voting rights advocates counter that threats of undocumented people voting are practically non-existent, and Republicans are actually trying to scare people who fear ICE interaction (because they have seen or heard of people being apparently racially profiled and pulled off the streets) if they go to a polling place in person. It’s an authoritarian-style play, they warn, and suggests the potential of legal overreaching by Trump.
It is true that the Constitution gives the states, not the federal government, the authority to run elections, so that legal point is also being made when the subject comes up.
Footnotes:
C-SPAN. (2026, May 12). “President Trump Says He’s Willing to Send ICE, National Guard to the Polls in November.” C-SPAN daily network coverage event. https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/president-trump-says-hes-willing-to-send-ice-national-guard-to-the-polls-in-november/5200208
Yang, M. (2026, Sept. 1). “Trump homeland security chief says ICE agents could be sent to polling places.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/01/trump-homeland-security-markwayne-mullin-polling
