As large-scale arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants continue across the United States, it has been revealed that large numbers of illegal immigrants without criminal records have been arrested in the Washington area.
Local media outlet Axios DC reported this on the 23rd in an article titled “ICE Sees Surge in Non-Criminal Arrests,” citing recent data from the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Deportation Data Project. According to the outlet, of the 852 illegal immigrants arrested by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Virginia and Washington, D.C. in early June, a whopping 60% (515 people) had no criminal charges or convictions, and in May, about 50% were illegal immigrants without criminal records.
In Maryland, the rate was somewhat lower than in Virginia or Washington, D.C., but 49 percent of illegal immigrants arrested in May had no criminal record, and that number had risen to 55 percent in early June. Of the people arrested in the Washington area in early June, 194 had criminal records, and 143 had been charged but not yet convicted.
The outlet reported that ICE had not arrested any illegal immigrants without criminal records in the Washington area in January, and that the recent surge in arrests of illegal immigrants without criminal records came shortly after immigration agents were quota-bound to make 3,000 arrests per day.
Nationwide, an average of 47 percent of illegal immigrants arrested by ICE in early June had no criminal records, more than doubling from about 21 percent in May. Recently, immigration authorities have been deploying many personnel to carry out intensive operations to arrest illegal immigrants in so-called ‘sanctuary cities’ such as the Washington area, New York, and LA that are uncooperative with the crackdown on illegal immigrants.