The White House and the Department of Homeland Security are disputing recent reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times that described a sharp rise in ICE arrests of immigrants without criminal records.
The Washington Post reported last week that ICE has arrested “soaring numbers” of “noncriminal” immigrants in the country illegally, saying the agency had “detained more people without a criminal record this year than in all of 2025.” The New York Times reported similarly that “ICE arrests soar as people with no criminal record are increasingly targeted.”
Lauren Bis, a special assistant to the president and White House spokeswoman, told Fox News Digital that “nearly 70% of illegal aliens arrested by ICE have been convicted or charged with a crime in the United States,” and argued that the true share of arrests involving public safety threats is higher than reported once foreign criminal histories are counted.
“Why does the mainstream media continue to peddle false narratives protecting criminal illegal aliens?” Bis said.
The Department of Homeland Security said that its figure — that nearly 70% of those arrested have criminal convictions or pending charges in the U.S. — “doesn’t account for those wanted for violent crimes in their home country or another country, INTERPOL notices, human rights abusers, gang members, terrorists” and other offenses committed abroad.
Cases Cited by DHS
DHS has previously highlighted individual cases it says illustrate the gap between U.S. criminal records and an immigrant’s broader history. In May, Homeland Security Investigations arrested Salvadoran national Josue Saul Garcia-Lopez, who had no U.S. criminal record but had an international warrant identifying him as an active member of MS-13, tied to extortion and robbery schemes in El Salvador.
Days earlier, ICE arrested Fredy Alexander Lopez Lara, a Honduran national wanted for homicide in his home country. In April, ICE arrested Danny Granados-Garcia, another Salvadoran MS-13 member wanted in El Salvador for murdering a pastor.
In March, Border Patrol agents in California arrested Salvador Suazo-Garcia, a Mexican national, in Lemon Grove, processing him administratively before turning him over to Mexican authorities. Suazo-Garcia had entered the U.S. legally in May 2021 under the Biden administration and was wanted in Mexico for lewd and lascivious acts upon a child. Around the same time, agents arrested Silvia Del Rosario Torres-Castro, a Mexican national wanted in her home country for homicide.
Late last year, ICE arrested Antonio Israel Lazo-Quintanilla, a Salvadoran national and member of the 18th Street Gang. DHS said his only U.S. offense was driving without a license, but he was on El Salvador’s most-wanted gang members’ list, sought for aggravated homicide, extortion and drug possession.
DHS also cited the arrests of Mexican brothers Pedro Luis Ortiz-Mendez and Jose Vicente Ortiz-Mendez in Texas, who are wanted for multiple murders connected to an attack at a festival in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, where one victim was shot and another attacked with a machete.
“These are just a few examples of murderers, gang members, and pedophiles the media refers to as ‘non-criminals’ because they only have criminal records in their home country,” Bis said. “No one would want these heinous criminals to be their neighbors. From foreign fugitives, gang members, and terrorists, ICE is getting the worst of the worst off our streets and out of our country.”
Fox News Digital said it reached out to the Washington Post and the New York Times for comment.
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