Speaking of President Trump's arguments for mass deportation, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told CNN, "There are some who have been apprehended for committing violent crimes after they have come across the border illegally. So, you start with that number, you have got, by some counts, as many as 3 or 4 million people that fit that category.” It’s possible that the undocumented population now could be about 15 million people. Under Johnson’s phrasing, as much as one-quarter could be “dangerous” — criminals, including violent criminals, or terrorists. There is little evidence that immigrants — including undocumented immigrants — cause more crime. In September, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a count of the number of noncitizens on ICE’s docket who have been convicted of, or charged with, a crime. There were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories — about one-third with pending charges — on ICE’s national docket, says the Washington Post Fact Checker.
The national docket is a list of every person ICE believes is a removable noncitizen who is present in the United States. As of September 2023, about 6.2 million people were on it, according to ICE, and it is believed to be more than 7 million now. The non-detained docket refers only to individuals not detained by ICE. With so little space available in ICE detention centers, many criminals convicted of serious crimes are shipped to another facility to serve out their terms. ICE’s figure — about 660,000 people with convictions or pending charges — is much lower than Johnson’s 3 million to 4 million. Moreover, the total includes people convicted of or facing nonviolent charges, such as immigration (about 93,000), forgery (22,000), and larceny (31,000).
Tom Homan, Trump border coordinator, said deporting the nearly 700,000 people with criminal records would be a top priority for the Trump administration. One issue, however, is that some countries, such as China, Cuba, Pakistan and Russia, refuse to accept nationals being deported — even in the face of visa sanctions and penalties. Johnson’s staff suggested that Johnson’s phrasing of “known criminals” covered a much larger universe of criminals than just violent criminals. They provided a variety of figures that would add up to 3 million people who committed crimes after entering the U.S. That includes 1.2 million cases in which undocumented immigrants used fraudulent Social Security numbers. Identity theft is a serious crime with real victims — such as children or poor adults with little credit history — but this is a number from 2017. It also includes 1.1 million suspected instances of asylum fraud. Johnson referred to “known criminals” but most of these people have not been charged or convicted.