The loudest “hissing” right now isn’t coming from inside immigration enforcement — it’s the air escaping from an inflated media narrative about the harm allegedly caused by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and a former senior adviser for research and statistics at the Department of Justice, reviewed the numbers behind the headlines and argues that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents under Trump made fewer mistakes than during the Obama era.
In an opinion piece for the New York Post, Lott addressed a media claim that 170 Americans were detained by ICE — along with another claim that 32 people died in ICE custody last year. He also pointed to NPR reporting that suggested “many” U.S. citizens “have been mistaken” for illegal aliens and that immigration agencies have “a long history” of a poor track record.
But Lott said the details tell a different story.
According to his breakdown, of the 170 U.S. citizens detained by ICE, 130 were arrested for interfering with ICE operations. Of the remaining 40, he wrote, only about half were held for more than one day.
That leaves roughly 20 cases out of 595,000 arrests — which Lott said works out to an error rate of 0.0067% during Trump’s first year, or about one mistake for every 14,925 arrests.
Lott contrasted that with ICE figures from Obama’s final two years, writing that the agency recorded “263 mistaken arrests, 54 mistaken detentions (book-ins), and four mistaken removals.”
Looking specifically at detentions during that period, he calculated ICE’s error rate at 0.0225% — about one mistake for every 4,444 arrests — which he said is roughly 3.36 times higher than under Trump.
Lott also took on the claim that 32 people died in ICE custody last year. While acknowledging that perfect comparisons are difficult because data isn’t always available in the same format, he wrote that there were 56 deaths in ICE custody across Obama’s eight years in office. Using available detention totals, he calculated a death rate of 0.007% — about one death for every 14,314 detainees.
Under Trump, Lott said the rate was 0.0054%, or about one death for every 18,594 detainees.
Lott argued that the political and media framing around immigration enforcement has consequences beyond perception.
“The critics’ demonization tactics are making federal agents’ jobs considerably more dangerous,” he wrote.
“Assaults on federal immigration officers increased by 1,347% in 2025, as agents experienced a terrifying 8,000% surge in death threats. Car attacks on ICE agents spiked by 3,200%,” he added.
Lott acknowledged that no law enforcement agency is flawless and that mistakes will happen. But he argued the bigger problem is what happens when data is presented without context.
“No federal agency is perfect. In immigration enforcement, as in all law enforcement operations, mistakes will be made. But the media’s lack of perspective on the data, and their refusal to put the numbers in context, is putting a match to an explosive public debate,” Lott wrote.
“Responsible journalism should inform us, not distort reality — or fuel hostility toward those doing a difficult and dangerous job.”
