Who released more convicted non-citizens? Trump or Biden?

The numbers above come from ICE’s written response to a request from House Representative Tony Gonzalez (R, TX) and have been circulating like wildfire on social media ever since. The Trump campaign’s knee-jerk reaction was that these are large numbers of criminals released into our neighborhoods by the Biden administration, but the truth is that these are cumulative numbers spanning decades, including those released under the Trump administration! This topic is discussed in detail elsewhere. Check out some links in the comments section below and please add commented links to any others you’ve seen.

In this note I focus on when did most releases of criminal convicts occur? Monthly release data by crime can be downloaded at www.ice.gov/… although unfortunately it only covers FY20 monthly and FY19 annually.

Now that you think about it, it’s clear that the absolute number of offenders released by ICE depends on the total number added to ICE’s list, which varies tremendously from year to year and month to month. To assess ICE’s role, let’s look at the data as follows Proportion – the percentage of those convicted of criminal offenses out of the total number of those released.

The chart below shows this share before FY21, during FY21 (bridge year from Trump to Biden), and in FY2-23. I have excluded FY24 as it has a different reporting format and is still considered preliminary

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Apparently the proportion is significantly higher during the Trump administration. Over 10% during the Trump years, fell to just over 3% in the middle years of the Biden administration.

Next, we look at the monthly data related to electricity transmission. I didn’t expect to see such a clear signal as we see in the chart below.

Clearly something changed under the new government that caused the proportion to drop dramatically and immediately and remain low in subsequent years.

I recognize that there are many moving parts involved in this relationship, so I invite comments from readers familiar with the historical policy context and evolution of ICE processes during this period of analysis. At first glance, it is clear from the above analysis that The Biden administration has been remarkably more effective than the Trump administration in addressing crime among the illegal immigrant populationwhich goes directly against a popular Trump campaign talking point.