In the aftermath of DHS's Tricia McLaughlin announcing her resignation. MS NOW reporter Vaughn Hilliard suggested that she had made incorrect claims about how many ICE arrestees had criminal records.
Fox's America's Newsroom
September 9, 2025
10:10 a.m. Eastern
TRICIA McLAUGHLIN, DHS ASSISTANT SECRETARY: Seventy percent of those illegal aliens who have been arrested under this administration have prior convictions or pending charges. And that doesn't even include those who have been arrested who don't have rap sheets in the U.S. but have rap sheets in their countries of origin. They might be a gang member -- they might have a human rights violation against them.
(...)
Fox's America Reports
November 11, 2025
1:19 p.m.
McLAUGHLIN: In Chicago, we've seen fantastic results -- the arrests of about 5,000 illegal aliens, 70 percent of which are -- have past criminal convictions or pending criminal charges against them.
(...)
Fox's America's Newsroom
January 19, 2026
9:08 a.m.
McLAUGHLIN: The facts on the ground, Dana, is that 70 percent of those that have been arrested under the Trump administration -- seven, zero -- either have prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges against them. That does not even include known or suspected terrorists of which we've arrested over 1,000. That doesn't include gang membership -- that doesn't even include being wanted for a violent crime in your country of origin or a third country.
(...)
MSNOW's Katy Tur Reports
February 9, 2026
2:48 p.m.
(discussing a study by CBS News that more than 60 percent of arrestees either had criminal convictions or criminal charges in addition to "civil immigration violations")
JACOB SOBOROFF: The larger picture is what we have seen anecdotally over and over and over again. They are not going after the worst of the worst, and you cannot institute the largest mass deportation program by going after only the worst or the worst.
KATY TUR: Is it because there are not that many of the quote, unquote "worst of the worst" to go after -- that if you wanted to do mass deportations, if you want to exceed the number of deportations that President Obama did, if you want a million people a year, that you're going to have to get people who are not violent criminals?
(...)
MSNOW's Ana Cabrera Reports
February 17, 2026
11:32 a.m.
VAUGHN HILLIARD: She is somebody who has suggested that DHS data had shown that the great majority of the individuals who had been deported and detained under the Trump administration were convicted criminals. Much of that data that was put out there came into deep questions as you began to unwrap some of the numbers.
