There has been much criticism of the Obama administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the deportation of non-criminal aliens and those who were caught in the country illegally due to misdemeanors and minor traffic violations. In 2007, the last full year of the Bush administration, traffic stops resulted in a total of 4,527 deportations and drunken driving arrests resulted in the deportation of 10,851 illegal immigrants. In 2010, traffic violations resulted in the deportation of 13,028 illegal immigrants and drunken driving arrests resulted in the deportation of 27,635 illegal immigrants. Furthermore, an ICE program that was launched in 2008 called Secure Communities is the target of quite a bit of criticism. The program screens fingerprints taken as suspects are booked into local and county jails through a federal database. If the suspect is found to be an undocumented immigrant, ICE will generally process them for deportation. The program was designed to apprehend only “serious criminals” but of the 100,000 or so illegal immigrants deported as a result of Secure Communities, about a third of them had no criminal record whatsoever and another third had been convicted only of misdemeanors.

New federal statistics are showing that, while deportations of small-time criminals and non-criminals are on the rise, so are the deportations of criminal aliens. Furthermore, as Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has argued, many criminal aliens are currently serving prison sentences before they will be deported and therefore have not shown up in the statistics. Napolitano said, "The more serious offenders are still in prison. We're not going to see them reflected in the numbers until we can begin to remove them." In 2010, 392,862 illegal immigrants were deported. 195,772 of those were criminals of some kind or another. In fact, between 2008 and 2010, the deportation of criminal aliens increased by 71 percent from 114,415. Interestingly, and contrary to the flurry of criticism towards ICE, the number of non-criminal aliens fell during the same time period. In 2008, 254,806 non-criminal aliens were deported and in 2010, 197,090 non-criminal aliens were deported, a decline of 23 percent. What’s more is that ICE claims that Secure Communities is credited for much of the increase in criminal alien deportations. Corey Price, assistant field office director with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in Columbus, Ohio said, “Our focus in ICE is going after criminals. There are others who are here illegally that we also arrest, but our primary focus is on the worst of the worst.”

Statistics relating to the number of criminal aliens deported versus non-criminal aliens deported vary between regions of the U.S. ICE slices the U.S. into 12 areas for the purpose of its statistical analysis. Regarding criticism pertaining to the deportation of illegal aliens due to minor traffic violations or misdemeanors, the vocal advocacy groups that oppose such practices often use language that implies that it is the traffic violations for which illegal immigrants are deported. It should be clarified that they are deported because of their immigration status and not the crimes or violations that they have committed.