Karoline Leavitt Gives Simple Answer To Reporter Asking How Many Illegal Immigrants Have ‘Criminal Record’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ABC News chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce Tuesday that every single illegal immigrant has a “criminal record” because they violated U.S. law.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is first prioritizing the arrests of illegal immigrants with heinous criminal records as part of President Donald Trump’s administration’s mass deportation operation. The agency arrested about 3,500 illegal immigrants in the first week of the administration, with many being members of gangs and having been convicted of sex crimes against children, rape and robbery.

Bruce asked Leavitt for an estimated number of illegal immigrants that have a “criminal record” versus those who entered the U.S. illegally.

“3,500 arrests ICE has made so far since President Trump came back into office. Can you just tell us the numbers, how many have a criminal record versus those who are just in the country illegally?” Bruce asked.

“All of them because they illegally broke our nation’s laws and therefore they are criminals as far as this administration goes,” Leavitt said. “I know the last administration didn’t see it that way, so it’s a big culture shift in our nation to view someone who breaks our immigration laws as a criminal, but that’s what they are.”

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The Trump administration arrested hundreds of migrant criminals and deported them via military aircraft. ICE agents arrested 956 migrants on Sunday and an additional 1,100 on Monday. These arrests have already outpaced the average of 310 daily arrests made by ICE during the 2024 fiscal year, when former President Joe Biden was still in office.

Among the 538 arrested Thursday included a suspected terrorist, four members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua and several individuals convicted of sex crimes against children, Leavitt said in a statement. Border czar Tom Homan told NewsNation on Thursday that at least 1,000 of the 1,300 apprehended by ICE on Thursday had criminal records.

Agents in Boston, Massachusetts, on Thursday arrested an illegal Brazilian national who was wanted for armed robbery, an El Salvadoran national charged locally for rape and an illegal migrant from the Dominican Republic who is charged with assault with a deadly weapon and heroin trafficking. In that same operation, video showed an illegal migrant gang member from Haiti with 17 prior criminal convictions praising Biden and former President Barack Obama as he exclaimed that he would not “go back” to his country.

ICE agents in Massachusetts apprehended a Dominican national convicted of brutally beating his wife to death in front of her 5-year-old son Monday.

Leavitt confirmed to Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese that Trump signed an executive order directing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that bring illegal immigrants into the U.S. to lose funding. The press secretary further told Reese that the president signed an executive order to “streamline” the vetting process for visa applicants and directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review the process to ensure that countries are “completely transparent” with the U.S.

WATCH The Daily Caller’s @reaganreese_: “Does the president intend to permanently cut off funding to NGOs that are bringing illegal foreign nationals to the country, such as Catholic Charities?” pic.twitter.com/Sqw6ugKjmn

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 28, 2025

On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order to declare a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, which allows him to utilize additional resources to address the migrant crisis that began under the Biden administration. He further signed executive orders to revoke the birthright citizenship of children born to illegal immigrants and to reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy.