ICE announces arrests of noncitizens convicted of sexual and violent crimes

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law‑enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is to enforce immigration, customs, and related federal laws to protect public safety and national security. In practice, ICE mainly works through two branches:

• Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which locates, detains, and deports people who are removable under immigration law; and
• Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which investigates crimes like human smuggling and trafficking, drug and weapons smuggling, financial crimes, and other cross‑border offenses. ICE enforces both civil immigration rules and certain criminal laws tied to border control, customs, trade, and immigration.

In these DHS materials, “worst of the worst” is not a legal category; it is a political/communications label DHS uses for non‑U.S. citizens who are in the country unlawfully and whom it wants to highlight as serious public‑safety threats. The people featured typically have convictions for serious or violent crimes (for example, homicide, rape, child sexual abuse, aggravated assault, kidnapping, or major drug trafficking) or are described as gang members, terrorists, or foreign fugitives. Individuals are designated “worst of the worst” when DHS/ICE selects their cases for inclusion in press releases and on the WOW.DHS.GOV website, not through any formal court process.

“Criminal illegal alien” is also not a formal legal term; it combines two ideas from U.S. immigration law and ICE practice:

• “Illegal alien” is DHS/ICE’s phrase for a non‑U.S. citizen who is present in the country without lawful immigration status (for example, entered without inspection or overstayed a visa), and who is therefore removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
• “Criminal” in this context means that person has been charged with or convicted of a crime, often a state or federal offense like those listed in the release. ICE’s Criminal Alien Program describes its mission as identifying, arresting, and removing “incarcerated aliens” and “criminal aliens” who have criminal records and are removable under immigration law. So legally, the people in the release are noncitizens whom the government alleges are in the U.S. unlawfully and who also have criminal charges or convictions.

What happens after an ICE arrest depends on whether there are criminal cases as well as immigration issues:

• If there are pending or new criminal charges (for example, for the underlying offense or for an immigration crime like illegal reentry), the person is usually prosecuted in criminal court first. They serve any sentence in criminal custody.
• ICE often places a “detainer” or otherwise coordinates so that, when the criminal sentence ends, the person is transferred to ICE custody.
• In ICE custody, they typically enter civil immigration proceedings, where the government asks an immigration judge to order removal (deportation). Some people may be detained; others may be released under supervision while their case proceeds. ICE’s own description of the Criminal Alien Program notes that it both pursues criminal prosecutions with U.S. Attorneys and then, once the criminal sentence is complete, moves people into administrative immigration removal.

The “70% of ICE arrests” claim comes from DHS leadership statements and press releases starting in late 2025. For example, a December 5, 2025 DHS release says, “70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens who have been charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.,” and the December 8, 2025 WOW.DHS.GOV launch repeats that “70% of ICE arrests are of criminal illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the United States.” The January 16, 2026 press release you’re reading uses almost identical language. DHS attributes this figure to ICE’s internal arrest statistics but has not publicly released detailed data, methodology, or a specific time window to verify it. Independent analyses of ICE detention data in 2025 (for example, by TRAC and summarized by Econofact) find that a majority of people in ICE custody at that time had no criminal conviction, suggesting the 70% talking point does not describe the overall detained population.

WOW.DHS.GOV is a public DHS website titled “Arrested: Worst of the Worst.” It lists thousands of named non‑U.S. citizens whom DHS says were arrested and removed as “criminal illegal aliens.” For each entry it typically provides:

• Name and country of origin
• The crimes of conviction or charges (for example, “rape with weapon,” “homicide,” “sex assault”)
• Any listed gang affiliation
• Location of arrest (city and state) The site lets anyone search or filter entries by state and by country of origin and browse through pages of individual records. Members of the public can access it directly at https://wow.dhs.gov. DHS press releases emphasize that the site is based on ICE arrest and removal records, but it does not provide case numbers or court documents. To independently verify a specific listing, a person would generally need to cross‑check against state or federal court records, local jail/prison records, or news reports for the named individual and location.