Foreigners Now Account for 61% of Federal Arrests

The Pew Research Center released an analysis of Justice Department numbers Monday showing a massive increase in the prominence of immigration-related offenses in federal law enforcement.

Pew cited a report released last month by the Bureau of Justice Statistics to show that immigration offenses accounted for fully half of federal arrests in 2014, up from only 28% a decade earlier. Consequently, the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), now makes more arrests than the FBI, DEA, BATFE, U.S. Marshal’s Service, and all other branches of the Justice Department combined.

According to Pew:

The geographic distribution of federal arrests also shows the growing emphasis on immigration offenses. In 2014, 61% of all federal arrests – or more than 100,000 – occurred in just five federal judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Driven by this massive increase in immigration arrests, a staggering 61% of federal arrests are now of non-U.S. citizens. These arrests, mostly for immigration offenses, but including thousands for other crimes, do not include the hundreds of thousands of non-criminal apprehensions of illegal aliens each year.

Illegal aliens made up an equally shocking 37% of all criminal defendants in federal district courts in 2014...