Catholic immigration advocates are speaking out after an internal federal document obtained by CBS News showed most individuals arrested in Trump administration immigration crackdowns over the past year do not have violent criminal records.
Almost 40% of those arrested lacked a criminal record altogether, and were accused of civil immigration offenses — such as being in the U.S. without legal authorization or overstaying a visa — that are usually adjudicated in civil court proceedings.
Sixty percent of ICE arrestees had criminal charges or convictions, but the majority of those charges or convictions were not for violent crimes.
The internal document, which aligns with data compiled by Syracuse University, contrasts sharply with Trump administration claims it is targeting the violent criminals in its sweeping immigration detention operations.
“Catholic social teaching calls us to uphold human dignity and due process,” Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, told OSV News regarding the data.
Gallagher, whose nonprofit trains and supports a network of over 400 Catholic and community-based immigration law providers in 49 states, emphasized the data “makes clear that many could be living peacefully in our communities while their cases are adjudicated.”
CBS News reported Feb. 9 that “less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump’s first year back in the White House had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses.”
The news outlet cited an internal Department of Homeland Security document it had obtained regarding 392,619 total arrests made from Jan. 21, 2025 to Jan. 31, 2026. Arrests by DHS Border Patrol agents, who have bolstered immigration operations in Minneapolis and other U.S. cities, are not included in that total.
DHS states on its website that under Secretary Kristi Noem, its personnel “are fulfilling President Trump’s promise and carrying out mass deportations,” by “starting with the worst of the worst.”
In a Feb. 9 press release, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that “70% of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.
“This statistic doesn’t even include foreign fugitives, terrorists, and gang members who lack a rap sheet in the U.S,” she said.
However, while McLaughlin pointed to detentions of “criminal illegal alien murderers, pedophiles, and rapists from our communities,” the DHS data obtained by CBS News showed that “less than 2% of those arrested by ICE over the past year had homicide or sexual assault charges or convictions.”
CBS News said the DHS document indicated “another 2% of those taken into ICE custody were accused of being gang members,” with just 0.3% alleged to be members of Tren de Aragua, a criminal organization originating in Venezuela.
In total, ICE arrests of those either charged with or convicted of homicide, robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping and arson “represents around 13.9% of all arrests” noted in the internal DHS document, said CBS News.
Stacy Brustin, professor emerita and director of the Immigration Law and Policy Initiative at The Catholic University of America, told OSV News, “It’s pretty overwhelming to see the numbers being detained who have either absolutely no history, criminal history, or history that is very minor” as well as “very old for minor” infractions.
She added that “huge numbers of individuals that have legal status are being arrested,” including “those who have applied for asylum or other kinds of protections and are following the rules.”
And, she said, the administration’s “numeric quota” for immigration arrests appears to be without “priorities,” making it “extremely difficult to target an actual population of people who have serious criminal convictions” amid “indiscriminate enforcement.”
DHS has not yet responded to an OSV News request for comment.
Catholic social teaching on immigration balances three interrelated principles — the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain their lives and those of their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and control immigration, and a nation’s duty to regulate its borders with justice and mercy.
Peter Pedemonti, founding member and co-director of New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, who spoke with OSV News during a weekly prayer vigil his organization conducts outside of Philadelphia’s ICE field office, said the immigration arrest and detention data was a wakeup call.
“This is a moment where we need to stand up — as individuals, as a church, at our workplaces — to make sure we’re stopping this,” he said. “From a Catholic perspective, Jesus teaches us to love our neighbor, to welcome the stranger, and he doesn’t pause to say, ‘if they have papers or if they are worthy.”
