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Just 2% of Immigration Court Filings Based on Alleged Criminal Activity in February 2026

Published Apr 07, 2026

The latest Immigration Court data show that relatively few immigrants face deportation based on alleged criminal activity. In February 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) filed charging documents on just 741 individuals claiming alleged criminal activity as the basis for seeking their removal. This accounted for just 2 percent of the “notices to appear” (NTAs) that DHS filed that month.[1] The remaining 98 percent of NTAs involved claimed violations of immigration rules such as entry without inspection or overstaying a visa to justify asking an Immigration Judge to enter a removal order.

Numbers are also lower now than they were a year earlier when President Trump returned to office. One year ago in February 2025, DHS filed NTAs on 821 individuals based on claims of criminal activity compared with 741 today. This represented 4 percent of the cases filed a year ago, rather than just 2 percent now.

The February 2026 numbers were also lower than the Biden administration's peak: 883 NTAs based on alleged criminal activity were filed in February 2023, and 794 in February 2024.

Longer Term Trends

Earlier years also saw far more noncitizens face removal proceedings in Immigration Court on alleged criminal grounds. TRAC has tracked NTA filings over the past quarter century,[2] and the data reveal a dramatic decline, both in the number and proportion of new Immigration Court cases citing criminal-related grounds as the basis for seeking removal.

Twenty-five years ago, NTAs filed each month alleging criminal activity as the basis for the removal claim reached as high as 3,000 and represented as much as 20 percent of all NTAs filed during the month. This period covered the last year of President Clinton's administration and the first months of President George W. Bush's administration.

Subsequently, despite considerable month-to-month variation, the number of NTAs filed seeking removal on criminal grounds rose and reached a peak of over 4,000 in March of 2010 during the Obama administration. After that peak, both the number and proportion of NTAs filed targeting noncitizens with alleged criminal behavior have declined. This decline continued through the years of the first Trump administration.

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Figure 1. The Number of Noncitizens Charged in Immigration Court Alleging Previous Criminal Behavior as The Basis For Seeking a Removal Order, February 2001 through February 2026
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Figure 2. The Percentage of Noncitizens Charged in Immigration Court Alleging Previous Criminal Behavior as The Basis For Seeking a Removal Order, February 2001 through February 2026

Summing Up

These results add to the growing body of evidence that despite the current Trump administration's rhetoric about targeting the 'worst of the worst,' its deportation enforcement is increasingly focused on noncitizens without criminal records. Other TRAC reports on civil immigration enforcement covering this topic include these: April 2014, June 2019, November 2019, December 2019, April 2020, January 2021, July 2022, September 2024, September 2025, November 2025.

Footnotes
[1]^ For this report, TRAC has included the small number of individuals whose alleged removal charge involved national security or terrorism concerns. In February 2026, for example, no one was charged with terrorism and just 4 individuals out of the 741 involved national security claims.
[2]^ These data covering October 2000 - February 2026 are available on its public website using its free web tool at: https://tracreports.org/phptools/immigration/ntanew/.
TRAC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit data research project founded in 1989. Its public website has moved from trac.syr.edu to tracreports.org. For more information, contact info@tracreports.org.