Analysis of: Worst of the worst? Most US immigrants targeted for deportation in 2025 had no criminal charges, documents reveal
The Guardian | February 22, 2026
TL;DR
77% of immigrants targeted for deportation in 2025 had zero criminal convictions—exposing 'worst of the worst' rhetoric as ideological cover for mass detention. This dragnet enforcement reveals immigration policy serving capital's need for a disciplined, precarious labor force rather than public safety.
Analytical Focus:Class Analysis Contradictions Historical Context
This Guardian investigation reveals a fundamental contradiction between the Trump administration's stated justification for mass deportation—targeting 'the worst of the worst' violent criminals—and the material reality: 77% of those entering deportation proceedings in 2025 had no criminal conviction whatsoever. Of the 23% who did have convictions, nearly half were for traffic or immigration violations. Only 1% involved sexual assault, and less than 1% homicide. The administration's refusal to publicize comprehensive data, relying instead on 'memes' and selective mugshots, demonstrates how ideology functions to obscure the actual targets of state violence. From a class perspective, this 'dragnet enforcement' serves purposes entirely separate from public safety. The 138,000 people swept into deportation proceedings represent a cross-section of the undocumented working class—people with years of community ties and stable employment. Immigration enforcement at this scale functions as labor discipline: it maintains a pool of workers who, facing constant threat of deportation, cannot organize, demand higher wages, or report workplace violations. The expansion of immigration detention to historic levels also represents a massive transfer of public resources to private prison contractors. The contradiction between rhetoric and reality is not accidental—it is structural. The administration cannot openly state that its goal is removing 'as many people as possible' regardless of criminal history, because such honesty would expose immigration enforcement as class warfare rather than crime prevention. The 'worst of the worst' framing performs crucial ideological work: it transforms a policy that primarily harms working-class families and communities into one that appears to protect them, manufacturing consent for mass deportation while obscuring whose interests are actually served.
Class Dynamics
Actors: Undocumented immigrant workers, DHS/ICE as state apparatus, Trump administration, Private detention contractors, Employers of undocumented labor, Immigration lawyers and advocates, Working-class communities affected by enforcement
Beneficiaries: Private prison and detention corporations, Employers seeking disciplined, precarious labor, Political actors using anti-immigrant sentiment for electoral advantage, Sectors of domestic workers facing wage competition (perceived, not actual beneficiaries)
Harmed Parties: 138,000+ individuals in deportation proceedings, Families and children of targeted workers, Working-class communities losing members, Workers who lose bargaining power through labor force intimidation, U.S. citizen children of deported parents
The state apparatus (DHS/ICE) exercises enormous coercive power over a population deliberately excluded from political participation and legal protections. This power asymmetry is maintained through immigration status as a legal category—a tool that divides the working class while disciplining its most vulnerable segment. The administration's control over data and narrative allows it to manufacture consent by selectively publicizing cases that fit its 'criminal alien' narrative while suppressing systematic data that contradicts it.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: Labor market segmentation through immigration status, Wage suppression via worker precarity, Expansion of detention-industrial complex, Cost of deportation proceedings borne by taxpayers, Loss of economic contributions from deported workers
Undocumented workers occupy a specific position in capitalist production relations: they perform essential labor (agriculture, construction, service industries) but are excluded from the legal protections that documented workers can claim. This creates super-exploitable labor—workers who cannot unionize effectively, cannot sue for wage theft, and cannot demand safe working conditions without risking deportation. Mass enforcement doesn't eliminate this labor force but maintains it in a state of optimal precarity.
Resources at Stake: Federal budget allocations for detention and enforcement, Private prison contractor profits, Labor power of immigrant workers, Social reproduction costs shifted to immigrant communities, Political capital derived from anti-immigrant mobilization
Historical Context
Precedents: Operation Wetback (1954) mass deportation campaign, Post-9/11 expansion of immigration enforcement infrastructure, Reagan-era Immigration Reform and Control Act criminalization, Obama-era 'Secure Communities' targeting, Historical use of immigration enforcement during economic downturns
This represents a continuation of capitalism's historical need for stratified labor markets. From the Bracero Program to contemporary H-2A visas, U.S. immigration policy has consistently sought to import labor while denying workers full rights. The current phase reflects neoliberalism's intensification of these dynamics: the criminalization discourse emerged strongly in the 1990s alongside welfare reform, trade agreements displacing Mexican farmers, and the construction of the modern detention apparatus. Each economic crisis intensifies anti-immigrant scapegoating, redirecting working-class anger toward fellow workers rather than capital.
Contradictions
Primary: The administration claims to target dangerous criminals while systematically apprehending people without criminal records—a contradiction between ideological justification and material practice that the administration manages through information control and selective narrative construction.
Secondary: Capital requires immigrant labor while the state criminalizes immigrant presence, Public safety rhetoric masks policies that destabilize communities and families, Record detention levels require massive public expenditure while claiming fiscal responsibility, The 'rule of law' justification depends on laws designed to be selectively enforceable
This contradiction cannot be resolved within the current framework. Either the rhetoric must shift to openly acknowledge mass removal regardless of criminality (politically costly), enforcement must actually narrow to match stated criteria (contradicting broader political goals), or continued information suppression must prevent public awareness. The FOIA lawsuit forcing data release represents one vector through which this contradiction becomes visible and potentially destabilizing to the policy's legitimacy.
Global Interconnections
This enforcement surge cannot be understood apart from global migration patterns created by imperialist relations. The displacement of workers from Mexico, Central America, and elsewhere results from trade agreements destroying local agriculture, U.S.-backed political instability, and climate change driven by wealthy nations. The same economic system that creates migration pressure then criminalizes those who migrate, converting victims of imperial extraction into a criminalized underclass whose labor can be super-exploited. The detention-industrial complex itself represents a significant sector of contemporary capitalism, with private contractors lobbying for expanded enforcement to fill beds guaranteed by government contracts. This creates perverse incentives entirely separate from any public safety rationale. Meanwhile, similar patterns emerge globally—the EU's treatment of Mediterranean migrants, Australia's offshore detention regime—revealing immigration enforcement as a systematic feature of contemporary imperialism rather than a uniquely American phenomenon.
Conclusion
This investigation demonstrates how immigration enforcement functions not as crime prevention but as class discipline—maintaining a stratified labor force while providing ideological cover through criminalization narratives. The 77% figure shatters the 'worst of the worst' justification, but the policy's persistence reveals that public safety was never the actual goal. For working people, the lesson is that immigration enforcement divides workers against their own interests. Solidarity across citizenship status isn't merely ethical—it's strategically necessary. A working class divided by papers cannot effectively organize against capital. The material basis for such solidarity exists: documented and undocumented workers share workplaces, communities, and class interests. Building organizations that recognize this shared position, while defending those targeted by enforcement, represents the path from analysis to action.
Suggested Reading
- The State and Revolution by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of the state as an instrument of class rule illuminates how immigration enforcement serves capital's interests while presenting itself as neutral law enforcement.
- The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961) Fanon's examination of how colonial and imperial relations dehumanize colonized peoples parallels the 'worst of the worst' rhetoric that strips immigrants of humanity to justify state violence.
- Prison Notebooks (Selections) by Antonio Gramsci (1935) Gramsci's concept of hegemony explains how the administration manufactures consent for mass deportation by framing class warfare as crime prevention—ideological work that makes ruling-class interests appear as common sense.