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Pew Research Center has come out with a new analysis of data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement revealing that criticisms against ICE agents supposedly rounding up “innocent” illegal immigrants are unfounded, after all. On the contrary, the analysis reveals that some 90 percent of all arrests done last year had criminal convictions or were wanted on charges.

The data show that only about 10 percent of arrests done under President Donald Trump’s first year in office had no known criminal charges or convictions.

Another significant finding of the analysis is that data showed that former President Obama’s administration was much more guilty of arrestig non-criminal illegals. Pew had their report titled: “”Most immigrants arrested by ICE have prior criminal convictions, a big change from 2009.”

2009 is the earlier year with available comparable data, and it showed that on that year, immigrants without past criminal convictions accounted for the majority (61 percent) of those arrested by the agency.

Pew also reported that immigrants with past criminal convictions accounted for 74 percent of all arrests made by ICE agents in fiscal 2017. The rest were classified as “non-criminal” arrestees, including 16 percent with pending criminal charges and 11 percent with no known criminal convictions or charges.

Overall, the number of ICE arrests decreased sharply during the span covered from 297,898 in 2009 to 143,470 in 2017 when Trump took over. What is of significance is that last year’s figures showed a dramatic 30 percent increase in the arrests compared to 2016, with most of the increase coming after Trump signed an executive order to step up enforcement.

ICE has been firm in saying that they are also willing to arrest non-criminal illegal when they come across them in their searches for criminal illegals. ICE underscored, too, that by crossing the border illegally and without documentation, the immigrant has broken U.S. law and is deportable.

Source:

www.washingtonexaminer.com/ice-90-of-all-arrests-had-criminal-records-pending-charges/article/2649248