Fox News has repeated a misleading talking point about the supposed criminality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrestees at least 32 times since December 26, 2025, after a conservative outlet published internal government data claiming that 70% of people in ICE custody had “criminal histories.” In fact, only about 7% of people in ICE custody have a conviction for a violent criminal offense.   

Late last year, the Washington Examiner published a story with the headline “Seven in 10 ICE arrests under Trump have criminal histories,” citing data from January 20-December 11, 2025, provided by the Department of Homeland Security. The Examiner wrote that “70%, or about 416,000, have ‘criminal convictions or pending criminal charges just in the U.S.,’” attributing the quote to a DHS spokesperson. 

Despite the bombastic framing, other reporting on ICE arrestees presents a very different picture. For instance, on December 4, 2025, The New York Times published data — up to date through October 15, 2025 — showing that only 7% of immigrants arrested by ICE have a conviction for a violent criminal offense. (A study from the Cato Institute published last November and looking at data since October 1, 2025, put the number even lower, at 5%.) According to the Times, an additional 37% and 30% have either a past conviction or pending criminal charges, respectively, though even those numbers can be misleading. 

As noted by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an authoritative source for immigration data, “Many of those convicted committed only minor offenses, including traffic violations." TRAC further reports that “73.6% held in ICE detention have no criminal conviction according to data current as of November 30, 2025.”     

Cato’s breakdown of federal data through November 15, 2025, revealed an even starker contrast: More arrestees had a traffic violation (6%) than a violent criminal conviction (5%).

Fox News’ coverage would leave viewers with the exact opposite impression. Some of Fox’s coverage cited the Washington Examiner’s article and noted that the data included those with pending charges, not only arrestees with convictions. In other cases, Fox hosts, anchors, or guests repeated the 70% claim without mentioning it included those who haven’t been convicted of any crime at all, much less a violent crime, leaving the viewer with a wildly distorted impression of who ICE is arresting and detaining.

• On The Five, Fox News contributor Guy Benson cited the Washington Examiner’s story before adding: “Nearly 70% had criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. That seems like a very good use of government resources.” [Fox News, The Five, 12/29/25]
• Fox News host Sean Hannity repeated the statistic without a caveat that it included those with pending charges: “So far, under President Trump, 70% of ICE apprehensions involve criminal illegal immigrants — you know, the criminals that put you and your family at risk — including known murderers, rapists, gang members, cartel members, even those with terrorist ties.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/7/26]
• Citing the same 70% figure, Fox News host Will Cain said “one of the benefits” of ICE’s mass deportation efforts is “security.” His evidence was the inflated statistic: “DHS says 70% of ICE arrests have criminal histories in the United States, so that means our streets are safer.” [Fox News, The Will Cain Show, 1/14/26]
• Fox News guest and Trump “border czar” Tom Homan claimed that “70% of everybody arrested is a criminal,” and faced no pushback from host Laura Ingraham. Homan continued, “We need to start advertising that every single day and putting their pictures all over social media. The bottom line is if people listen to most of the media, not this network, they’re going to hear that ICE is separating families every day, we’re deporting U.S. citizen children, we’re doing operations in elementary schools and churches and hospitals. We just got to push back the lies.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/15/26]
• On Saturday in America, Homan made the same false claim, again unchallenged by host and former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, declaring: “We are running the biggest deportation operation this country's ever seen. And despite what the left says, about 70% of those we arrest are criminals.” Homan continued: “The other 30% are national security threats that don’t have criminal histories and they’re people with final orders who had due process at great taxpayer expense.” Homan has previously asserted that 30% of ICE arrestees are national security threats without providing evidence for the claim. [Fox News, Saturday in America, 1/17/26; Media Matters, 8/7/25]
• Guest hosting The Ingraham Angle, McEnany defended Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s use of the 70% talking point on CBS, arguing that Noem “works at DHS and is gathering the data.” In response, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said: “The reality of the data is that 70% of those illegal aliens that the Trump administration has arrested in the last year have either pending criminal charges or prior criminal convictions. … It is 70%. And when we say we’re going after the worst of the worst, that's not a talking point. That is the facts on the ground, no matter how the media wants to spin this.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 1/19/26]
• Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade also discussed the CBS segment with Noem to defend the Trump administration’s misleading data. “People have been charged who have not been convicted yet, along with convicted criminals,” Kilmeade said. He added: “That's a fact. These are stats. So, seven out of every 10 are in danger to your society.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/19/26]

Fox News and other right-wing media outlets have pushed a version of the “70% of ICE arrestees are criminals” claim before. As Media Matters previously reported, Homan frequently made that claim over the last summer — often adding that the remaining 30% of arrestees were “national security threats,” without supplying evidence to support the claim. 

During one interview on Fox & Friends on July 29, 2025, Homan said that “70% of the people we are arresting are criminals. Hard stop: 70%.”

“Who are the other 30%?” Homan continued. “The other 30% are national security threats.” 

Homan repeated versions of that claim on Newsmax’s The National Report, Fox Business’ Varney & Co., and OAN’s Real America with Dan Ball, none of which fact-checked him or asked for evidence.

Fox’s coverage since the December 26, 2025, Washington Examiner article shows the network is attempting to juice the stats from DHS and massively inflate the perceived public safety risk posed by immigrants. Studies have long found that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than the native-born population. The best estimates are that a mere 5-7% of ICE arrestees have been convicted of a violent crime, and no amount of irresponsible rhetoric from Fox News can change that basic fact.

Methodology

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel for any variation of the terms “70” or “seventy” within close proximity to any of the terms “illegal,” “alien,” or “undocumented” or any variation of the terms “migrant,” “immigrant,” “convict,” “felon,” “criminal,” or “arrest” from December 26, 2025, when the Washington Examiner reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement claimed that 70% of arrestees had “criminal convictions or pending criminal charges in the U.S.,” through January 22, 2026.

We included claims, which we defined as instances of uninterrupted block of speech from a single speaker that mentioned the misleading statistic that 70% of migrants arrested or detained by ICE in 2025 had prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. For host monologues, headlines, and correspondent reports, we defined a claim as the speech between read quotes and played clips. We did not consider the speech within read quotes or played clips unless a speaker in the segment positively affirmed said speech either directly before or after the quote was read or the clip was played.