When the “Criminals” are not criminals

Despite ICE’s frequent claims that its widespread immigration sweeps target dangerous criminals, a new report issued by the Migration Policy Institute says otherwise. The report Collateral Damage: An Examination of ICE’s Fugitive Operations Program, found that a staggering 9 percent of total arrests in 2007 were of people with any kind of criminal conviction. Over the course of the program’s entire existence (it was established in 2003), MPI “found that 73 percent of the nearly 97,000 people arrested … were unauthorized immigrants without criminal records.”  So much for ICE’s claims that it’s making our communities safer. Instead, the number show that it is arresting people who pose no threat whatsoever.