With rapid-fire executive orders changing the immigration enforcement landscape and an abundant amount of misinformation online, it can be hard to discern between facts and politically motivated claims.
As legal challenges fly and questions arise about laws — old and new — here are some answers to popular questions about current and past immigration policy.
Recent reports say Trump is first targeting “dangerous criminal aliens” for deportation — is that true?
President Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, has said “public safety threats,” which he defined as immigrants without legal status who have criminal convictions, are priority targets for deportation — though his remarks implied those without convictions would also be targeted as they moved to arrest others.
“We can’t arrest them in the county jail, so that means we got to go to the neighborhood and find them,” Homan told CNN. “He may be with others who don’t have criminal backgrounds but are here illegally, and we’ll arrest them too.”
ICE announced 956 total arrests across the country on Sunday. Bloomberg News reported that 260 people were targeted in the Chicago area, but just seven had criminal arrest warrants.
Two men targeted in immigration arrests in Chicago this week were only accused of entering the United States illegally, according to court records. A third man, Danny Linares, was charged with selling an undercover agent an untraceable ghost gun and two Glock switches — which are used to turn handguns into automatic weapons — earlier this month.
Doesn’t ICE already deport people with criminal records?
Yes, though violent criminals aren’t often a major share of each year’s deportations.
Between 2013 and 2022, the largest share — about a third — of people deported in connection to criminal convictions were removed due to immigration violations, such as re-entry after deportation or false claims of citizenship. In the same time frame, drug charges, including possession, averaged about 15%, traffic offenses 11.1%, assault about 9.5% and sex offense-related deportations just above 2%.
However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that ICE arrested 674, detained 121 and removed 70 potential U.S. citizens between 2015 and the first half of 2020. ICE still doesn’t independently keep track of these figures despite GAO recommendations to start doing so in 2021.
The centering of criminality in talks about immigration have also created false perceptions that immigrants are more prone to commit crimes or be violent.
A National Institute of Justice-funded study examining data from the Texas Department of Public Safety found that immigrants without legal status are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes, and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.
“We continue to reject the assertion by Donald Trump and other enablers that somehow we are more prone to criminality,” Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Ill said at a press conference earlier this month. “It is a falsehood.”
How many of the people deported from the Midwest were convicted or accused of crimes? How many weren’t facing charges?
Between the start of fiscal year 2021 and September 2024, when the latest data is available, ICE removed 12,281 people from the Chicago “area of responsibility,” which goes north to the top of Wisconsin, to the southern and western borders of Kansas as well as east to the borders of Kentucky. In the same time and area, the agency has made 33,005 arrests leading to 16,192 detentions.
The majority, or about 17,032 arrests were for people without charges or convictions, though they may have violated immigration law in some other way — such as re-entering the country after deportation, having charges in other countries or anyone who tried to enter the country without documentation — ICE’s statistics don’t separate the categories.
About 11,389 people with convictions were arrested as well as 4,584 with pending charges.
People who remained in ICE custody were more likely to have pending charges or a conviction, with more than 14,600 of the 16,192 detainees since the start of 2021 falling into one of the two categories. Another 1,584 detainees were held on either a lack of charges or the aforementioned immigration violations.
Do sanctuary cities like Chicago release dangerous criminals into the community, as Trump supporters claim? What is the process after an arrest?
Anyone arrested for a crime by local or state law enforcement, regardless of immigration status, would have a bond hearing where a judge would determine whether the accused is a danger or a flight risk. If the answer is yes to either one of those, an accused criminal is held in custody pending trial. If neither is true, a judge can order their release.
If people are detained by ICE or other federal agencies working on immigration enforcement, they are taken to a processing center in Broadview, where people without pending criminal records are released under bond. Those with a deportation order or a violent criminal record aren’t allowed to see a judge and are transferred to ICE custody in surrounding states, such as Indiana or Wisconsin.
Illinois county jails and prisons aren’t allowed to hold immigrants for ICE, though the agency can arrest people by waiting outside. Illinois state law, signed by former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner during Trump’s first term, also prohibits police from detaining anyone because of their immigration status.
Sanctuary cities, like Chicago, also typically have their own laws forbidding local law enforcement from cooperating with federal agents on immigration enforcement.
The Chicago Police Department does not document immigration status or share information with federal immigration authorities, said spokesperson Don Terry in a Jan. 18 statement. But he added that police “will not intervene or interfere with any other government agencies performing their duties.”
The Welcoming City ordinance also prohibits the sharing of information about an individual’s status and any record involving nonviolent crimes between CPD and ICE. However, the federal agencies can still use FBI and Department of Homeland Security databases to obtain information.
If someone sees a police officer or a sister agency violating the Welcoming City ordinance, they can report it to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) or the city’s law department.
What rights do people have when dealing with ICE or other federal agencies?
Read more on the rights people have when working with federal immigration enforcement agents here.
Everyone has the right to remain silent and be represented by a lawyer. Legal help can be obtained by calling (312) 660-1370 or (855) 435-7693.
If federal agents knock, no one is required to open the door without a warrant signed by a judge.
Federal agents cannot search a person, vehicle or home without their consent, a warrant signed by a judge or probable cause — a “reasonable” basis to think the person in question has committed a crime. Remaining silent, race or ethnicity don’t meet the standard for probable cause.
How will the Laken Riley Act and other new Trump actions help ICE deport people beyond what they were already authorized to do?
The Laken Riley Act, the first bill passed under the Trump administration after receiving bipartisan support in both Congressional chambers, requires federal officials to detain any migrant arrested or charged with crimes like shoplifting, burglary, theft, larceny — low-level offenses often associated with living in poverty — or assaulting a police officer, as well as crimes that injure or kill someone.
The bill also allows state attorneys general to sue the federal government for harm caused by failures or decisions in immigration enforcement that harm states or people, including releasing migrants from custody or failing to detain migrants who have received deportation orders.
Concerns about the enforcement of the act stripping due process rights for immigrants and DACA recipients were voiced by some Democrats who opposed the bill. They also cited budgetary concerns, with Democrats on the Appropriations Committee estimating the bill would cost $83 billion over the next three years, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press.
Biden era guidelines keeping ICE out of “sensitive areas” such as schools and churches were pulled back by Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman Thursday. He also ended humanitarian parole programs for immigrants detained by ICE.
Another directive from Huffman Thursday also gave Department of Justice (DOJ) law enforcement officials in the U.S. Marshals, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons authority to investigate and apprehend undocumented immigrants regarding immigration.
How does Trump’s track record for deportations during his first term compare to deportations under Biden?
Biden deported about 4.7 million people during his term, more than twice the roughly 2 million Trump did in his first.
However, nearly 3 million of the deportations under Biden were expulsions under Title 42 — which started at the end of Trump’s tenure and allowed for greater deportation powers during the pandemic in connection with a CDC order of the same name, and largely affected removals at the border. The public health emergency authorizing Title 42 removals ended in May 2023.
Many of the Title 42 deportations were the same people being deported again at the border due to it carrying fewer penalties for attempts to enter the country, with 27% of deportees in 2022 being repeat cases.
Border seizures also jumped sharply under Biden, with 27,000 pounds of fentanyl seized by U.S. authorities in the 2023 government budget year, compared with 2,545 pounds in 2019, Trump’s final year in office. The drastic increase may partly reflect improved detection methods, though.
Trump’s first term also saw slower deportations than under either of Obama’s terms, who was referred to by critics as the “deporter in chief” when his administration neared 2 million deportations halfway through his second term.