The White House claim cites the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) report “Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Year‑End 2025 Update,” which compiles monthly incident-level police data from large city dashboards and projects a possible 2025 national homicide rate below the historical low by applying the sample decline to the 2024 national rate; CCJ’s long‑run historical series draws on Randolph Roth’s death‑certificate counts for 1900–1959 and the FBI’s Crime in the United States series for later years.
In the CCJ analysis “murder rate” is reported as a per‑capita homicide rate (converted to incidents per 100,000 residents). The core CCJ findings are based on a sample of large U.S. cities (not a complete nationwide raw count); CCJ then estimates a possible nationwide 2025 rate (~4.0 per 100,000) by applying the observed sample decline to the 2024 national rate, noting that the nationwide FBI report will confirm final figures.
CCJ’s year‑end 2025 study used a sample of 40 large U.S. cities selected because they had consistent monthly incident‑level data posted through December 2025; homicide counts came from 35 of those cities (the Appendix in the CCJ report lists which cities reported which offenses). Cities were chosen by data availability, not as a statistically representative national sample.
“Last year” in the White House piece and the CCJ report refers to calendar year 2025 (data through December 2025). CCJ collected data in early January 2026 and treats these figures as preliminary — subject to revision by local agencies and later FBI national reporting — and warns its city sample and timing can produce differences from later official counts.
The White House article credits broad administration efforts under “Make America Safe Again/America First” — described as a “whole‑of‑government offensive” that includes stepped‑up immigration enforcement/deportations, federal deployments and support for local law enforcement, and other enforcement actions. Independent researchers (including CCJ) say their data document trends but do not establish causation; CCJ explicitly warns its report is not evidence that particular policies caused the declines and that rigorous causal studies are needed. News coverage and experts likewise note multiple possible drivers and caution against attributing the drop to a single policy.
The White House text uses the phrase “ridding the streets of … illegal aliens” and refers to deportation efforts but gives no operational numbers or statute citations. Publicly available CCJ and press reporting do not document a specific, court‑authorized “mass deportation” program tied to the 2025 crime decline; DHS/ICE actions (e.g., increased arrests, expedited removal) would rest on existing immigration statutes and regulations (immigration removal and expedited‑removal authorities under Title 8), but claims of large‑scale, programmatic “mass deportations” require concrete official data or legal orders that the White House piece does not cite. In short: the article asserts large deportation/enforcement activity but does not provide verifiable scale or a legal order; independent reports (including CCJ) say the crime trend analysis does not demonstrate those actions caused the decline.