Immigration Enforcement and the Criminal Record: Using the Secure Communities Program to Understand the Role of Criminal History in ICE Enforcement

This study complements existing crimmigration research using Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agency data from the Secure Communities program to assess immigration enforcement determinations of criminal history. We know very little about how ICE makes their decisions based on a migrant’s criminal record, including decisions about whether to arrest migrants based on a low-level criminal offense. Analyses examine ICE determinations of the level of seriousness of the criminal record and factors related to immigration court charges. We find that ICE’s determinations of the highest priority deportable levels were overinclusive, encompassing a range of less serious crimes. Additionally, we find that migrants of Caribbean and African descent, in addition to ICE’s level of seriousness, influence whether ICE charges a migrant as deportable related to criminal activity or as undocumented. Even the lowest ICE priority level significantly influences the likelihood that a migrant is deportable on immigration charges based on a criminal record. This study highlights the racialized nature of ICE enforcement practices, mainly how they disproportionately affect Caribbean and African migrants and contributes to the broader understanding of the racial and ethnic dynamics within immigration enforcement.