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Immigrant murder convictions 'tens of thousands' higher than ICE's bombshell figures: data expert
The total number of immigrant noncitizens in the U.S. who have murder convictions is likely “tens of thousands” more than the 13,400 listed on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) national docket, given the criminal records of border-hoppers in their native countries are not baked into the data, a data expert tells Fox News Digital.
The bombshell figures released last week via ICE’s national docket show that 277 noncitizens are currently being held by ICE, while 13,099 noncitizens are on the non-detained docket with homicide convictions. ICE’s non-detained docket includes noncitizens who have final orders of removal or are going through removal proceedings but are not detained in ICE custody.
Of the 13,099 convicted murderers not being detained by ICE, it is unclear how many are incarcerated by federal, state or local law enforcement, or roaming the streets. There are an additional 1,845 on the non-detained docket with pending homicide charges.
In total, 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories are on ICE’s national docket, which stretches back decades.
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Texas National Guard troops watch over more than 1,000 immigrants who had crossed the Rio Grande overnight from Mexico on Dec. 18, 2023 in Eagle Pass, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)
The figures underline the serious threat illegal immigration and not vetting immigrants thoroughly poses to law-abiding people living in the U.S. The figures sparked an outcry from border security advocates.
Sean Kennedy, who specializes in law enforcement and crime data analysis, said the numbers of noncitizens in the U.S. who have murder convictions — as well as convictions for other crimes like assault and rape — is much higher than the 13,376 on ICE’s detained and non-detained dockets because those convictions only apply to crimes committed in the U.S. and not murders committed in migrants’ home countries.
“We don’t know how many people have come into the United States over the last decades, let alone in the last few years, who have criminal convictions or offenses overseas,” Kennedy said. “Very few of the migrants who crossed the border who have criminal records will ever be properly vetted because the criminal records in their home countries are insufficient, they’re not compatible with, or they’re just plain not shared with the United States. And we’ve seen this over and over again.”
Kennedy cited the case of a Peruvian gang leader, Gianfranco Torres-Navarro, who was wanted for nearly two dozen murders in his home country and entered the U.S. illegally at the Texas-Mexico border on May 16, as an example of how the vetting process is letting violent criminals into the U.S.
He was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol near Roma, Texas, before being released into the U.S. with a notice to appear for immigration proceedings, Fox News learned. It took almost two months before federal authorities learned Torres-Navarro was wanted in Peru for 23 killings, including the slaying of a retired police officer.
“He was a drug gang lord, and we didn’t know that because Peru didn’t tell us, or he wasn’t listed in a database that we had access to because our databases are very limited,” Kennedy said.
Gianfranco Torres-Navarro, the Peruvian gang leader wanted for 23 murders, was arrested by ICE after being caught and released at the border. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
Kennedy said that the federal database includes a list of people with mostly offenses that were committed in the U.S. and by people who are considered security threats, but there are lots of those who are security threats who are not identifiable, or their biometric data — such as fingerprints — is not being collected.
“So if you’re living in the mountains of Afghanistan and you go by a pseudonym, we have no idea [that] when you scan your fingerprints, you’re that guy,” Kennedy said, noting governments aren’t forthcoming with the data. “The Taliban government isn’t sharing that. The Venezuelans aren’t telling us who their gangsters or mobsters are. The Chinese aren’t telling us who their spies are, let alone the Russians or the Tajiks or anyone else.”
Kennedy said that added into the mix is the roughly 2 million so-called “gotaways” who crossed the border over the last three years but never encountered Border Patrol.
“We have no idea who they are,” he added.
Kennedy noted that when Border Patrol encounters migrants at the border, the agency asks for basic information such as their name, place of birth and also collects biometric information and registers it with the National Crime Information Center, a national database of all state and local crime information. It also processes the data through the National Vetting Center list, which co-ordinates with various federal agencies like TSA and co-ordinates with other countries.
“But that data is very limited, too, because that’s completely voluntary as to what countries submit … And worse than that, very few countries participate in agreements where they will share full and freely information about their criminal context,” Kennedy said.
“So we get very little information about foreigners crossing the border, and very little of it can be verified [and] many of the people who cross the border have no serious government documentation and sometimes none at all.”
Illegal immigrant Victor Martinez Hernandez is accused of savagely raping and murdering mother of five Rachel Morin in Maryland on Aug. 5, 2023. (Tulsa Police Department/ Facebook)
The ICE data from last week shows that among those on the non-detained docket, 62,231 were convicted of assault, 14,301 convicted of burglary, 56,533 had drug convictions and 13,099 convicted of homicide. An additional 2,521 have kidnapping convictions and 15,811 have sexual assault convictions.
It is not known how many of the noncitizens on the national docket entered the U.S. illegally or legally. For instance, a permanent resident Green Card holder who is convicted of a crime is subject to deportation once convicted and would therefore end up on the national docket.
Kennedy, who is the executive director of the Coalition for Law Order and Safety, a nonprofit research group which studies and advocates for effective public safety policies, said the lion’s share of the near 13,400 noncitizens convicted of homicide, carried out those killings while in the U.S., and that even if they have served their time they are not necessarily deported as their home countries can refuse to take them back.
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That is because in 2001’s Zadvydas v. Davis, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to indefinitely detain people who would otherwise be deported if they cannot be deported.
Kennedy said there is no exact figure of the actual homicide crime convictions rate of noncitizens, but it can be gauged by extrapolating the numbers from a Texas investigation into noncitizen crimes and then applying them to the national rate.
That investigation, by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), found that since June 2011, illegal immigrants have been charged with over 1,100 homicides, more than 3,500 sexual assaults and 3,700 other sex offenses.
It meant that the overall Texas homicide conviction rate in that period was 2.88 per 100,000 residents, while the illegal immigrant rate was 3.25 per 100,000 residents, or 13% higher. Legal immigrants, by contrast, were convicted of homicide at significantly lower rates than illegal immigrants and the overall Texas population.
“So if we extrapolate that across the United States, there would be tens of thousands of people in addition to these 13,000 who’ve committed a homicide here,” Kennedy explained.
Jocelyn Nungaray, 12, was found strangled to death in a Houston creek. Venezuelan migrants Franklin Pena, 26, and Johan Martinez-Rangel, 22, were indicted last month on capital murder charges in connection with Nungaray’s murder. (Fox Houston courtesy of the Nungaray family)
“There is a large number of people who are committing crimes in the United States who are here illegally that we know about. And there is a large number of people who are committing crimes in the United States who we don’t know about. They could be gotaways or somehow slipped through the cracks in another way and that population is a wild card for US law enforcement because we can’t deport them.”
“When you’re importing hundreds of thousands of young El Salvadorian men, or Venezuelan men, which for decades were homicide capitals of the world, it’s likely that many of them have committed murder or have been accomplices to murder because their homicide rates were 20 times the U.S. rate,” Kennedy added.
The Texas DPS investigation found that more than 20% of its incarcerated illegal immigrant killers were unknown to DHS, Kennedy said, adding this is likely replicated across other states as well – bringing the figures even higher again.
“These are all preventable crimes. If these people hadn’t come here, they wouldn’t have committed these crimes,” Kennedy explained. “So when we know someone has a criminal history, we have an obligation to protect our citizens first, not import the world whom some of them are criminals and offenders and violent and terrorists and other threats to U.S. public safety.”
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Arizona governor vetoes Charlie Kirk memorial license plate, sparking GOP outrage: ‘This bill falls short’
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Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing fierce backlash after vetoing a bill that would have created a specialty license plate honoring slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, a move Republicans are blasting as a stunning act of partisanship after his assassination.
Kirk, who was assassinated while speaking at a Sept. 10 Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University, lived in Arizona with his wife, Erika, and two children.
The proposed specialty plate, referred to as the “Charlie Kirk memorial” plate or the “Conservative grassroots network special plate,” featured a photo of the late Kirk and the TPUSA logo in front of an American flag background.
Below the license plate number were the words “FOR CHARLIE.”
A custom Arizona license plate, featuring a Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk design, shared by state Sen. Jake Hoffman. (Senator Jake Hoffman via X)
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Of the $25 fee required for the plate, $17 would be an annual donation deposited into the Conservative Grassroots Network Special Plate Fund, according to the legislation.
While the recipient of the Grassroots Network Special Plate Fund was not explicitly designated as TPUSA in the bill, it noted the director of the fund would allocate revenue annually to a nonprofit organization, founded in 2012, that focuses on restoring traditional values, maintaining a grassroots activist network on high school and college campuses in Arizona, and assisting college students with voter registration and absentee ballots.
People gather at a memorial to mourn Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk outside Turning Point USA headquarters Sept. 12, 2025, in Phoenix. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
TPUSA, founded by Kirk in 2012, is well known for its grassroots activist networks on high school and college campuses. It is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
The $25 fee and annual $17 donation are consistent with the fees for the other 109 nonprofit license plates offered by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT).
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The state Senate passed the bill, 16-2, with the House of Representatives voting 31-23 in favor prior to Hobbs’ veto.
Specialty plates in Arizona are authorized by the legislature and sent to the governor to be signed into law. They have been offered since 1989.
In a letter explaining the veto, Hobbs cited concerns with the bill “bring[ing] people together,” claiming it would “insert politics into a function of government that should remain nonpartisan.”
Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs is facing fierce backlash after vetoing a bill that would have created a specialty license plate honoring slain Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
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“Charlie Kirk’s assassination is tragic and a horrifying act of violence,” Hobbs wrote. “In America, we resolve our political differences at the ballot box. No matter who it targets, political violence puts us all in harm’s way and damages our sacred democratic institutions.
“I will continue working toward solutions that bring people together, but this bill falls short of that standard.”
Specialty license plates with political interests already approved by the state include the “Choose Life” Plate, which benefits the Arizona Life Coalition and its mission to promote anti-abortion advocacy and education; the “In God We Trust” Plate, which benefits conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom; and the Arizona Realtors’ “Homes for All” Plate, which funds affordable housing projects.
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Turning Point Action conference in 2023 in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Lynne Sladky/AP Photo)
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Another approved plate, “Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Plate,” which benefits Solid Rock Teen Centers, features a portrait of the legendary musician, who has made political comments about social issues including gender identity.
Republican state Sen. Jake Hoffman, who sponsored the bill, posted a fiery statement on social media after the governor’s action, claiming her “grotesque partisanship knows no bounds.”
“Even in the wake of a global civil rights leader — an Arizona resident and her own constituent — being assassinated in broad daylight for his defense of the First Amendment, Hobbs couldn’t find the human decency to put her far-Left extremism aside simply to allow those how wish to honor him to do so,” Hoffman wrote. “Katie Hobbs will forever be known as a stain on the pages of Arizona’s story.”
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On Saturday, TPUSA COO Tyler Bowyer shared an X post that said, “Deport Katie Hobbs.”
TPUSA, Bowyer and Hobbs’ office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
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Air Force veteran warns ‘cartels don’t collapse — they fracture’ after notorious drug lord killed
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Nearly two weeks after Mexican forces killed notorious cartel boss Ruben “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, questions remain about how the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) will respond and whether the blow will meaningfully disrupt the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
Carlos De La Cruz, a 20-year U.S. Air Force veteran who deployed after 9/11 and later served along the southern border, told Fox News the cartel leader’s death marked a major victory, but warned Americans should not mistake it for the end of the fight.
“When I say that this is a significant win, I mean it,” De La Cruz said. “El Mencho ran one of the most violent cartels on the planet.”
Oseguera, who rose to prominence in the post–El Chapo era, oversaw CJNG’s aggressive expansion across Mexico and into key trafficking corridors feeding U.S. drug markets. Under his leadership, the cartel became a central architect of fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking and drew a $15 million U.S. reward for information leading to his capture.
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Smoke rises from burning vehicles after a military operation that a government source said killed Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, known as “El Mencho,” in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Feb. 22, 2026. (Screen grab obtained from a social media video. @morelifediares via Instagram/YouTube via Reuters)
But De La Cruz cautioned that removing a cartel kingpin does not dismantle the organization.
“Cartels don’t collapse when you just cut the head off — they fracture,” he said. “And part of that fracture is going to see a lot of short-term violence while all these factions fight over territory.”
Following Oseguera’s killing on Feb. 22, the U.S. State Department issued travel alerts in multiple Mexican states, citing road blockages and criminal activity tied to security operations, underscoring concerns about instability in the aftermath.
Drawing on his military background studying enemy command structures, De La Cruz described the cartel fight as a long-term campaign requiring sustained pressure.
A mughsot of Ruben “Nemesio” Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” beside graffiti depicting the letters of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, covering the facade of an abandoned home in El Limoncito, in the Michoacan state of Mexico. (Eduardo Verdugo/AP Images; Drug Enforcement Administration)
“You don’t win a war with just one airstrike,” he said. “The goal is dismantling the networks and going after their financing.”
De La Cruz, who is running for Congress and is the brother of Texas Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, argued that CJNG’s Foreign Terrorist Organization designation gives U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies expanded tools to target cartel infrastructure and financial pipelines.
KAROLINE LEAVITT WARNS CARTELS TO ‘NOT LAY A FINGER’ ON AMERICANS OR PAY ‘SEVERE CONSEQUENCES’
A soldier stands guard by a charred vehicle after it was set on fire in Cointzio, Mexico, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, after the cartel leader’s death. (Armando Solis/AP Photo)
But he stressed that the fentanyl crisis should be viewed as a domestic security emergency, not a distant foreign problem.
“For decades, they were using their territories as launching pads to pump chemical weapons into America — because that’s exactly what fentanyl is,” he said.
De La Cruz, who said he worked side by side with Customs agents while deployed to the border, warned that cartel networks are highly adaptive and that any gains could be temporary without sustained follow-through.
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Smoke rises after violence hit Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. (Courtesy of Scott Posilkin)
“These networks, they’re going to adjust. They’re going to adapt and they’re going to adapt quickly,” he said. “We have to continue to go after the money launderers, especially on our side of the border, because that’s the full fight.”
While Oseguera’s death removes one of the most dominant figures in Mexico’s criminal underworld, De La Cruz said the mission is personal.
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“I took an oath to defend this country,” he said. “And I intend to stand by that oath.”
Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
Stepheny Price covers crime, including missing persons, homicides and migrant crime. Send story tips to stepheny.price@fox.com.
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TUCSON, Ariz. — More than five weeks after the suspected abduction of Nancy Guthrie — the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie — Arizona authorities say cadaver dogs used earlier in the investigation are not currently being deployed as the search continues.
The elder Guthrie is believed to have been kidnapped from her home in the Catalina Foothills in northern Tucson around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 1.
While no suspects have been publicly identified, and she has not been found, cadaver dogs had been deployed earlier in the case, according to Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos. They have not been visible in weeks.
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A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office remains outside of Nancy Guthrie’s home, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil; Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images)
“They are available if needed in the future,” he told Fox News Digital.
There are a number of reasons not to be using cadaver dogs at this stage in the investigation, according to Betsy Brantner Smith, a retired police sergeant and spokeswoman for the National Police Association.
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Savannah Guthrie visits the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Thursday, March 5, 2026. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
One would be if there’s credible information that Guthrie is still alive.
“Anything is possible,” Nanos told Fox News Digital last week, adding that he would not discuss specific leads or evidence in the case.
DNA IS STILL PENDING AS VOLUNTEERS FIND ANOTHER GLOVE IN THE SEARCH FOR NANCY GUTHRIE
Brantner Smith, who is not involved in the case, said departments may hold back K-9 resources for several reasons. Those could be that authorities don’t have a good idea of where to search, they think she might be concealed in a place where dogs would have a hard time detecting her, or they believe she’s been taken to Mexico, according to Brantner Smith.
Law enforcement agents walk around the neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives just outside Tucson, Ariz. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
“I do believe that the sheriff’s department has much more information that they are not releasing to the public,” she told Fox News Digital. “And I’m not sure at this point why that would be, unless they have a solid suspect and don’t want to tip them off.”
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Most departments, including the Pima County Sheriff’s, don’t have their own cadaver dogs and borrow them from state and federal authorities or neighboring jurisdictions.
An investigator looks inside a culvert in the neighborhood where Annie Guthrie, whose mother Nancy Guthrie has been missing for more than a week, lives just outside Tucson, Ariz., on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
In Guthrie’s case, the sheriff’s department sought K-9 assistance from the local Border Patrol office earlier in the investigation.
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PCSD deferred further comment on the K-9s to Customs and Border Protection, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office walks around Nancy Guthrie’s home on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026 in Tucson, Ariz. (Ty ONeil/AP Photo)
The biggest lead so far has been Nest camera video showing a masked intruder on Guthrie’s doorstep the morning of her abduction.
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He is described as about 5 feet, 9 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall and of medium build.
Nancy Guthrie, 84, has been missing from her Arizona home since Jan. 31, 2026. (Don Arnold/WireImage/Getty Images)
He was wearing a black Ozark Trail backpack.
Authorities have said they won’t consider the case cold until they run out of viable leads to follow up on — and tens of thousands have come in so far.
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Savannah Guthrie has asked anyone with information to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
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There’s a combined reward of more than $1.2 million for information that leads to her mother’s recovery.
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