Biden’s Unbalanced Approach: Nonviolent Immigrants Bear the Brunt
An alarming trend of enforcing immigration checks has been observed as migrants fall victim to unnecessary disruption of their lives in New York City. Interestingly, it turns out that the Biden administration, despite the rhetoric, was much more effective in capturing real convicts than the Trump administration. The figures reveal a concerning focus on non-violent immigrants during mandatory check-ins, compared to a slightly more balanced approach under Biden. It’s almost as if their strategy focuses too heavily on non-violent individuals at the expense of prioritizing public safety.
While the Trump administration has indeed registered a higher absolute number of immigrant crime convictions, a closer look behind the scenes shows a minute increase in the number of arrests for severe offences like drugs and violence. A deeper review of the arrest reports shows several individuals being detained for petty traffic violations or strictly mere immigration crimes – suggesting a ‘quantity over quality’ approach to immigration enforcement, a worrying trend indeed.
From the start of the year through June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted nearly 112,000 arrests, of which just 40 percent were of criminals. This is stark in contrast to the Biden administration, which recorded around 51,000 arrests in the same period in 2024 where a significant 53 percent were convicted criminals, indicating a possible harsh approach towards non-violent immigrants instead of prioritizing serious convicts.
Moreover, the arrests of those who were convicted of violent crimes dropped from 10% under Biden to 7%, and a decrease was also noted in drug crimes from 9% to an alarming 5%. Datasets from the Deportation Data Project highlight this astonishing trend of the Trump governance. Unfortunately, this data clearly exposes a concerning disregard for prioritizing the capture of dangerous convicts, a lopsided approach indeed.
Emerging data shows that numerous democratic states like Hawaii, Vermont, California and Nebraska are leading with the highest proportion of violent criminals in this year’s ICE arrests. However, conservative states such as Maine, Alabama, Montana and Wyoming seem to demonstrate lower shares. The data makes one question the effectiveness of ICE’s methods.
Many immigration attorneys argue that there’s an unnecessary onslaught of enforcing arrest and detention for immigrants with minor violations or pending charges, under the banner of Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ campaign. This has led to a surge in the number of detention of immigrants with no history of crime, an inhumane and unfair course of action, one could say.
A sudden spike in arrests was noted around mid-May, with government attorneys moving to deny bail and restrain individuals who attend court hearings post being released at the border. This emphasizes an aggressive approach towards individuals who have not been convicted of any crime but are merely under suspicion or have made a slight violation.
Despite slight improvements on the front of arresting people convicted of violent crimes, about a 45% increase, the overall proportion of this category of arrests have fallen. For drug crime arrests, the increase was even smaller, only 21%, which indicates that the arrest of non-convicted individuals has almost tripled to 67,000, accounting for a staggering 60% of total arrests. A precarious development, indeed.
In a questionable defense, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, under Trump, does insist that it is incarcerating violent convicts including child abusers, drug traffickers, and burglars. However, the evidence from Oregon shows the contrast with a jump in the number of arrests of non-convicted individuals.
Despite a slight rise in violent-crime convictions under the Trump administration, it’s concerning to see a shift in focus towards non-violent criminals, even causing discomfort among some Republicans. It’s indeed troubling to question whether public safety is indeed the primary intention.
The rise in nonviolent crimes as a share of immigration arrests is not an achievement to be proud of. More petty offenses such as traffic violations and intoxication while driving have replaced serious crimes like assault and drug trafficking. The pattern appears to focus more on fearmongering rather than SERIOUS crime prevention.
While driving under the influence remains the most common conviction on record, it’s followed closely by common traffic offenses. This category has risen from sixth to second place, bypassing crimes like assault and drug trafficking. This highlights an increase in milder violations in comparison to severe crimes, which used to dominate under the Biden administration.
The most drastic increase for the top 10 crimes was seen for minor traffic offences. Illegal border entry also tripled, a charge which serves more to scare migrants than to address any serious national safety concerns. Judging from this information, it seems there’s a misplaced focus in the current administration’s immigration enforcement.