The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency celebrated how wonderful it feels about the 100 days since President Donald Trump signed executive orders ramping up immigration enforcement with a glossy Wednesday press release bragging about all of the immigrants it’s been arresting.
Deportation officers with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations arrested 41,318 people “who are either known or suspected of being in the country illegally” between January 22 and April 29 of this year, according to the agency. As ICE pointed out itself, that means there was an increase of over 37% since the same time period in 2016.
ICE was also quick to point out that over 73% of the individuals arrested by ICE had been convicted of criminal charges. It declined to break down how many of those criminal charges were non-violent offenses, but violent convictions like homicide, rape, assault, and kidnapping accounted for about 2,700 of the charges.
“ICE agents and officers have been given clear direction to focus on threats to public safety and national security, which has resulted in a substantial increase in the arrest of convicted criminal aliens,” ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan said in a post. “However, when we encounter others who are in the country unlawfully, we will execute our sworn duty and enforce the law.”
Of course, ICE is giving us just one interpretation of what it has wrought in the past few months. Here’s just some of what the agency left out:
- ICE started–and eventually stopped–publishing a list of crimes allegedly committed by alleged undocumented immigrants in an effort to fear-monger and frighten.
- Arrests of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record have doubled.
- Undocumented parents were separated from their families for non-violent charges and convictions that happened many years ago, including a mother deported nine years after using a fake social security number in order to work to provide for her family, among others. Even an Ohio mother without any criminal record was deported.
- DACA beneficiaries were also at risk of deportation, with the Trump administration deporting six times more former DACA recipients in its first month than the Obama administration did per month.
- Victims of domestic violence have declined to pursue cases against their abusers for fear of being discovered and detained by ICE.
Fusion Video compiled the events of the same 100 days after Trump signed the immigration orders. You can watch those below: