In new data released this week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reports it arrested 158,581 illegal aliens in FY2018 -- of which 87 percent, or about 138,000 aliens, were either convicted criminals or had pending criminal charges at the time of their arrest.
“By far, the largest percentage of aliens arrested by ICE are convicted criminals (66 percent), followed by immigration violators with pending criminal charges at the time of their arrest (21 percent),” ICE stated in their report.
Of those with criminal convictions, DUIs made up the largest category by crime at 80,730 individual charges counted. Dangerous drug offenses came at a close second with a total of 76,585 charges. Those arrested also had a combined total of 50,753 assault charges, 11,766 weapons offenses, 5,250 sexual assaults, 2,085 kidnapping charges and 2,028 homicides. Other crimes included burglary, robbery, traffic offenses, non-violent sex crimes, possessing stolen goods, obstructing the police and damaging public property.
More than 6,500 of those arrested were convicted murderers or sex offenders.
The 158,581 arrests ICE made in the past fiscal year mark an 11 percent increase from FY2017, and a 30 percent increase from the year before – most of which came from increased arrests of aliens with pending charges.
“While the arrests of convicted criminals remained relatively level from FY 2017 to FY2018 at 105,736 and 105,140 respectively, administrative arrests with pending criminal charges increased by 48 percent,” ICE reports.
On top of arresting illegal aliens who’d committed crimes, immigration officials added they removed 256,085 illegal aliens in FY2018, the majority of which were caught by border agents while illegally crossing the border. Of those removed, 5,872 were known or suspected gang members and 42 were known or suspected terrorists. An overwhelming 92 percent of those removed hailed from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador.
Additionally, ICE reports it filed a total of 177,147 detainers against criminal aliens being held in state and local custody in FY2018, up 24 percent from the 142,356 detainers it issued in FY2017.
However, even with the increase, the number of illegal aliens arrested last year only constitute a paltry 1.4 percent of the conservatively estimated 11 million illegal aliens currently residing in the U.S.