Trump's 'border czar' claims more than 1.5 million non-citizens in the United States have criminal convictions. Here's a fact check.

Tom Homan, the “border czar” appointed by President-elect Donald Trump, said he wants to prioritize deporting noncitizens with criminal histories when Trump's second term begins in January.

This follows recent high-profile criminal cases involving undocumented immigrants, including the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley by a Venezuelan immigrant who crossed the U.S. southern border illegally.

But in interviews, Homan and other top Republicans have shared conflicting and inflated numbers on the total number of noncitizens who Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials say fall into that category.

In a recent interview with Fox News, Homan said there are “more than 1.5 million convicted criminal aliens in this country with deportation orders that we will pursue.” Trump's transition team said that figure included some migrants who entered the country illegally, although they are not considered “convicted criminal aliens.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrive at a Flatbush Gardens home looking for an undocumented immigrant on April 11, 2018 in Brooklyn, New York. John Moore/Getty Images

House Speaker Mike Johnson has said in recent weeks that the number of migrants apprehended specifically for committing violent crimes is “by some calculations, 3 or 4 million people.”

However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement provided much lower estimates to Congress.

As of July 21, ICE's national registry, which tracks immigrants facing deportation proceedings, listed approximately 660,000 noncitizens with criminal histories, including 436,000 convicted felons and 227,000 subject to deportation proceedings. pending criminal charges.

This includes noncitizens detained by ICE and those not detained by the agency.

There are only estimates of the number of noncitizens currently in the United States. In 2022, there were approximately 24.5 million noncitizens, including at least 11 million illegal immigrants and 13.5 million people who are legal permanent residents or legal temporary residents, according to Pew estimates. Research center based on the latest census data.

According to Homan's figures, about 6 percent of noncitizens are convicted felons. According to Johnson's figures, nearly 12 percent of noncitizens are criminals, or as much as 24 percent of the unauthorized population.

According to ICE figures, nearly 2.6 percent of noncitizens in the United States have criminal histories.

Response from Trump's transition spokesperson

The agency's totals are well below the millions suggested by Homan and Johnson, and ICE's numbers remain the most accurate available for tracking noncitizens with criminal histories, according to C. Mario Russell, executive director of the Center for Migration Studies, a think tank that also supports policies that protect the rights of migrants.

Johnson's office did not respond to a request for clarification at the time of publication.

Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump-Vance transition, told CBS News that Homan was studying the number of migrants who entered the United States illegally and evaded border patrols, sometimes referred to as “escapades” by border officials. immigration and border security.

“Tom Homan is right: Nearly 2 million escapees have eluded border patrols under the wide-open Biden-Harris border, which is more than four times the average under President Trump,” Hughes said.

The Border Patrol estimates that approximately 1.7 million migrants have evaded apprehension since the start of fiscal year 2021. However, there is no official data on the number of so-called “escapers” with a record judicial.

There were also “leaks” under the Trump administration, but the average number during the first three years of Trump's term, before immigration plummeted during COVID-19, was four times lower than the US totals. fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to testimony from Steven A. Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies.

In some interviews, Homan also cited lower numbers, more in line with ICE data. On November 14, for example, Homan told NewsNation, “authorities have identified more than 700,000 undocumented immigrants with criminal convictions.”

What ICE data shows about the number of noncitizens with criminal histories

Noncitizens – including those with a green card – can lose their legal right to reside in the United States after committing a crime. Many people tracked by ICE remain incarcerated and can only be deported after serving their sentences.

Data suggests that many of the 436,000 convicted criminals on this list, including more than 13,000 convicted of murder and 62,000 people convicted of assault, have been in the United States for years. Nonviolent offenders are also on ICE's registry, including more than 125,000 people convicted of or facing traffic violations.

In 2016, under the Obama administration, there were 368,574 convicted felons listed on ICE's non-detainee registry, according to data released by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General. As of June 2021, a few months into the Biden administration, the list had 405,786 convicted felons.

Some non-citizen criminals remain in the United States for years because they come from countries that do not accept or limit U.S. deportations, including Cuba, Venezuela, and China. Others are legally protected from deportation under the United Nations convention because they face a credible threat of torture if they return to their home countries.

Government statistics indicate that a relatively small fraction of migrants processed by Border Patrol have criminal records in the United States or other countries that share information with U.S. authorities.

Additionally, although the data is not comprehensive, available studies suggest that undocumented immigrants are less frequently incarcerated than native-born Americans.

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Laura Free

Laura Doan is a fact checker for CBS News Confirmed. She covers disinformation, AI and social media.

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