FTA:

Noncitizens who commit serious crimes should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and deported. Whatever amount the government spends on immigration enforcement, it should spend on detaining and removing this small minority of individuals. Donald Trump claims that he did that, but the facts tell a different story regarding his record on migrant criminals:

On his fourth day in office, Trump signed an executive order rescinding Obama-era policies that prioritized the detention and removal of serious public safety threats;

Within a few months, his administration was secretly separating families, using prosecutorial resources to jail migrant parents and focusing resources on visa overstays, not serious criminals;

During the height of family separation, Trump deprioritized prosecuting migrants with criminal histories to instead spend resources on separating families;

While Trump poured resources into detaining asylum seekers, he also released nearly 58,184 noncitizens with criminal records, including 8,620 violent criminals and 306 murderers;

ICE ended up (re)arresting nearly 11,000 noncitizens who entered under Trump and were convicted of non-immigration crimes, including rape and murder; and

Trump's policies incentivized migrant criminals to enter, triggering a threefold increase in the number of convicted criminals attempting to cross the border illegally.