Analysis
What the official said
“Under the leadership of President Trump, crime rates across the country have plummeted to historic lows. It is common sense. When you remove criminal illegal aliens from the country, crime rates plummet.”
Claimant: Lauren Bis Assistant Secretary
Agency or office: Department of Homeland Security
Context
Statement in a DHS news release highlighting recent ICE arrests of criminal noncitizens.
Evidence
The assertion combines a descriptive claim (that crime rates are at "historic lows") with an implicit attribution to policies under President Trump. Whether crime rates are at "historic lows" depends on which crime measures and timeframes are used; long-term U.S. crime trends have declined since the 1990s for many major categories, but year-to-year changes vary and some measures lag or differ by jurisdiction. The additional causal claim — that removing criminal noncitizens caused nationwide crime rates to "plummet" — is not directly supported by the DHS release and would require robust, peer-reviewed empirical evidence isolating immigration enforcement from many other factors that affect crime. Available national data sources (FBI, BJS) should be consulted for specific metrics and timeframes; independent research finds multiple drivers of crime trends, making the simple causal statement unsupported as presented.