A Guardian analysis of government records has found that the vast majority – 77% – of people who entered deportation proceedings for the first time in 2025 had no criminal conviction, exposing a stark gap between the Trump administration’s rhetoric and reality.
Within days of Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trotted out a phrase that his surrogates would come to use over and over again: “the worst of the worst.”