The usual suspects in the legacy media are doing their best to help the Democrats sell their preferred narrative about illegal aliens in the U.S.
CBS News is again pushing the "most of them aren't really even criminals" (if you don't count the "entered the U.S. illegally" laws they broke), but now we're getting an additional "they've never engaged in violent crime" spin:
CBS News Exclusive: An internal DHS document shows that less than 14% of nearly 400,000 individuals arrested by ICE in President Trump's first year back in power had violent criminal records.
— Camilo Montoya-Galvez (@camiloreports) February 9, 2026
It's the most detailed look yet at who ICE has arrested.https://t.co/zMt5Y2vfCJ
Less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump's first year back in the White House had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained… pic.twitter.com/Q8JfTxvwkU
— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 9, 2026
First of all, just taken at face value, CBS basically saying "more than 50,000 of illegals arrested in the first year of Trump's second term had charges or convictions for violent crimes" isn't the criticism of the Trump administration they think it is. Secondly, all of those "immigrants" ICE arrested are in the U.S. illegally, which is a crime.
Then there's the "non-violent crime" game CBS is playing.
DHS's Tricia McLaughlin spelled out the kinds of things that fall under the umbrella of "non-violent crimes":
Drug trafficking, Distribution of child pornography, burglary, fraud, DUI, embezzlement, solicitation of a minor, human smuggling are all categorized as “non violent crimes.”
— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) February 9, 2026
Like we said, ~70% of those illegal aliens arrested under @POTUS Trump and @Sec_Noem have pending… https://t.co/4AUzxGMEhP
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By @cbs’s standard, Edward Hernandez, who @ICEgov arrested last week in Virginia is a “non criminal” because he hasn’t been convicted in the United States.
— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) February 9, 2026
Never mind that he is an MS-13 member & confessed to murdering 5 people in El Salvador through shooting, torturing,… pic.twitter.com/lY3VYOQGdu
The Dems and media (as always, pardon the redundancy) continue to move the goalposts. We've gone from "they're not criminals" to "most haven't been convicted of violent offenses" in a short amount of time.
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