DOJ: Noncitizens account for 64 percent of all federal arrests

WASHINGTON — Arrests of noncitizens by the U.S. government more than tripled over the past decade and now account for 64 percent of all federal arrests, the Justice Department said Thursday.

"While noncitizens make up seven percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for 15 percent of all federal arrests" in 2018, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which said noncitizens accounted for roughly one-quarter of all federal drug and property crime arrests.

Concern about crime committed by undocumented immigrants has been a key point in the Trump administration's push for stricter border controls. But the report showed that most of the arrests of noncitizens were for immigration offenses, not violent crimes.

Prosecutions for violating immigration laws have flooded the nation's federal courts, especially in border states. Nationwide, arrests of noncitizens for immigration offenses rose 440 percent in the two decades from 1998 to 2018 — from 19,556 a year to 105,748. By contrast, the number of noncitizens arrested for other crimes rose about 8 percent.