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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents cited "criminal activity" in deportation proceedings in just 2.8 percent of the nearly 270,000 cases filed in immigration court so far this year, according to research done by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse or TRAC Immigration project.
That appears to contradict testimony that the ICE acting director made to Congress last week.
"Approximately 90 percent of ERO’s administrative arrests in the interior of the country are of aliens that have prior criminal convictions, face pending criminal charges, are immigration fugitives or have been previously removed from the country and have illegally reentered," said Matthew Albence, who made a testimony to Congress about the need for more funding for ICE and updates to immigration laws.
"The people who are in positions of power in ICE and in government now are trying to spin that the people who are being detained all have these tremendous criminal records. The reality we see on a daily basis is that's just not true," said Ray Ybarra Maldonado, an immigration attorney.
According to TRAC Immigration, the numbers here in the Phoenix area are even worse than the national numbers. The criminal activity of immigrants is cited in only 0.5 percent of the cases filed in the Phoenix immigration court. That amounts to 18 cases so far this year.
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