The media’s at it again: Trying to whip up public hysteria over immigration enforcement.
“President Donald Trump had pledged to target the ‘worst of the worst’ criminal offenders among the nation’s migrants,” ABC News intoned this month — yet “just 3% of recent ICE detainees had a violent felony conviction.”
The story zoomed around social media and was picked up by other outlets, many of which implied that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has somehow betrayed its focus on public safety.
But that argument rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of both immigration law and the purpose of immigration enforcement.
ABC’s statistic is real — of the 438,537 illegal immigrants detained in the administration’s first 14 months, 13,018 of them had been convicted of a crime like homicide or sexual assault in the US.
Yet its conclusion is utterly wrong, ignoring the impact of the most significant immigration law Congress has enacted in years: the Laken Riley Act.
Americans should remember why Congress passed that law.
Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was murdered in February 2024 by an illegal immigrant who had been apprehended for committing lesser offenses and released into the United States.
Her vicious killing sparked outrage over a system that repeatedly ignored warning signs — until an innocent American paid the ultimate price.
Congress responded with a clear message: Immigration authorities shouldn’t wait for illegal immigrants to commit murder, rape, robbery or other violent felonies before taking action.
Instead, the Laken Riley Act expanded mandatory-detention rules to include illegal immigrants who are arrested for, or admit to, a range of crimes including burglary, theft, larceny and shoplifting.
People like Javier Hernandez Rosas, an alleged MS-13 member from Mexico with arrests for abduction and weapons possession, now in ICE detention.
Or Nelson Vladimir Amaya-Benitez of El Salvador, charged with armed robbery and theft.
Congress decided that, as a matter of public safety, intervention must occur before such criminal conduct escalates.
Yet critics now complain that too many detained aliens are not convicted murderers, rapists or robbers — turning the law on its head.
The goal of immigration enforcement is not merely to identify the worst offenders, but to apply the laws Congress enacted to protect Americans from becoming victims in the first place.
The same critics overlook another reality: Immigration enforcement has never been limited to violent felons.
Federal law has long required the detention and removal of aliens convicted of a broad range of offenses relating to drugs, firearms, fraud and countless other crimes.
It also requires detention of aliens with final removal orders, and gives immigration officers broad discretion to detain removable aliens who present flight risks or dangers to the community.
ICE officers aren’t enforcing a public-safety code written by TV commentators — they’re enforcing the laws enacted by Congress.
And Congress has made it clear that public safety involves far more than “violent felonies.”
There’s another flaw in ABC’s 3% delusion: Many aliens convicted of homicide, rape, robbery and other violent offenses are still serving lengthy sentences in US state prisons — and ICE can’t take custody of them until they’re released.
Consequently, many of the most dangerous criminal aliens are not counted in daily ICE detention statistics because they’re incarcerated elsewhere.
Ultimately, it comes down to a simple question: must ICE wait until an illegal alien commits a violent felony before taking steps to remove him or her?
Congress answered that question when it passed the Laken Riley Act.
And Americans shouldn’t have to wait for another Laken Riley before the government enforces the law.
Immigration enforcement is an essential public-safety function, aiming not to detain violent felons after they’ve done their damage, but to identify removable aliens, enforce the laws Congress has written, and prevent criminals from preying again.
That’s why the obsession with the 3% statistic misses the point.
The lesson of Laken Riley was that the government shouldn’t ignore warning signs until it’s too late.
Congress understood that reality, as its law shows — and the press should, too.
Andrew Arthur is the fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies.