Trump Says ICE Can Arrest Migrants Without Criminal Records After Agents Told to Prioritise 'Worst First'

President Donald Trump reaffirmed that ICE could still arrest people unlawfully in the US without additional criminal histories after conflicting interpretations of arrest guidance caused confusion among some agents.

The dispute followed verbal instructions circulated to ICE field offices during the week of 21 September. Some agents reportedly understood the direction to prioritise serious offenders as a broader restriction on arrests. The administration subsequently described the episode as a miscommunication, rather than a formal policy change.

The distinction has practical consequences for immigration enforcement. Officers may be instructed to concentrate resources on particular cases without other people becoming categorically exempt from arrest. Individual arrests and detention decisions remain subject to federal immigration law.

Trump Reaffirmed Broader ICE Arrests

Trump told Fox News that people unlawfully in the US could still be arrested and deported, including those without an additional criminal history. He also said ICE could continue making so-called 'collateral' arrests, referring to people encountered during an operation targeting someone else.

The administration therefore rejected the interpretation that ICE had suddenly been instructed to limit arrests exclusively to people with criminal records. That distinction matters because an operational priority can determine where officers concentrate resources without creating a categorical exemption for everyone else.

Arrest and Detention Are Not the Same

Federal immigration law separately addresses arrest, detention, and release. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1226, a non-citizen may be arrested and detained under an immigration warrant while a decision is made on whether they should be removed. The same statute also establishes circumstances in which certain people must be taken into custody.

That means the administration's statement about who remains subject to arrest should not be read as saying every person unlawfully present will automatically be detained. The legal process can involve arrest, custody, release on bond or parole, and removal proceedings, depending on the individual circumstances and applicable law.

'Worst First' Created an Operational Grey Area

The reported instruction to prioritise the 'worst first' appears to have created uncertainty because it could be interpreted in two very different ways. One interpretation is straightforward resource allocation: officers focus first on people considered serious public-safety or immigration-enforcement priorities.

Another would be a much broader restriction, in which people without criminal records were effectively taken off the arrest list. According to the reporting, the administration said the latter was not the intended policy and described the confusion as a miscommunication.

New guidance was subsequently sent to field offices. The distinction is particularly relevant for a large enforcement agency, where informal instructions can affect how officers interpret priorities on the ground.

The Written Policy Framework Is Broader

The administration's wider immigration strategy also helps explain why the reported confusion mattered. A January 2025 White House executive order directed federal agencies to enforce immigration laws and called for policies aimed at identifying, detaining, and removing people who are subject to removal under US immigration law.

DHS has also continued publicly highlighting arrests of people it describes as serious criminal offenders, repeatedly using the phrase 'worst of the worst' in September 2026 enforcement announcements. Those releases demonstrate that targeting serious offenders has been a prominent part of the administration's public messaging, even as the latest clarification indicates that enforcement is not limited exclusively to that group.

That creates a useful distinction between who receives priority and who remains legally subject to enforcement.

Why the Clarification Matters for ICE Officers

The immediate significance of the episode is operational rather than simply political. If officers interpret a priority message as a restriction, enforcement decisions can look very different from a situation in which the same message simply tells them which cases to handle first.

The administration's clarification therefore sought to remove that ambiguity without announcing a new rule limiting ICE arrests to people with criminal records. For the public, the clearest takeaway is that the reported weekend confusion did not result in a formally announced policy restricting ICE arrests to people with criminal records. People without additional criminal histories remain within the administration's stated enforcement approach, while individual arrests and detention decisions remain governed by federal immigration law.