U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it has deported several noncitizens convicted of violent crimes, including homicide, rape and assault, as the Trump administration highlights enforcement figures ahead of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have said removals since Trump returned to office have exceeded 670,000, and the administration also claims more than 2 million people have left the country voluntarily.
President Donald Trump pledged during his campaign to pursue what he described as a historic mass-deportation effort. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have said the administration has removed more than 670,000 people from the United States since Trump returned to office, though that total remains below the president’s previously stated goal of reaching one million removals per year. The administration has also claimed that more than 2 million people have left the country voluntarily during the same period—an assertion that has drawn scrutiny from some independent immigration researchers, who argue that “self-deportation” is difficult to measure and can be overstated depending on methodology.
ICE, in briefing The Daily Wire, highlighted several recent deportations of people it said had been convicted of serious crimes.
One case involved Akira Salinas-Ruiz, a Mexican national whom ICE said was removed from the United States after serving a Wisconsin prison sentence. ICE said Salinas-Ruiz caused the death of an 18-month-old child, Santiago Teniente Jr., in 2006 through abusive head trauma consistent with shaken baby syndrome. ICE said Salinas-Ruiz was convicted of first-degree reckless homicide on July 11, 2007, after pleading no contest, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. ICE said an immigration judge ordered his deportation in 2008 while he was incarcerated, and that ICE arrested him on Feb. 17 after his release and deported him.
ICE also said it deported Ruben Alonso Hernandez-Lainez, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national convicted in Frederick County, Maryland, of second-degree assault and second-degree rape. ICE said Hernandez-Lainez entered the United States illegally in 2021 and was later apprehended by Border Patrol near Hidalgo, Texas, in May 2022, before being released. ICE said Maryland authorities arrested him on May 15, 2023; that he was convicted in February 2025; and that he was sentenced to three years and four months, with all but 18 months suspended, followed by five years of supervised probation. ICE said an immigration judge ordered his deportation on Jan. 20 and that he was removed 10 days later.
In another case, ICE said it deported Jamaican national Kemar Hamilton on Jan. 8 after he completed a prison sentence tied to a Bronx homicide. ICE said Hamilton was convicted in the 2009 shooting death of 58-year-old Edgar McCalla during a robbery outside McCalla’s home, and that Hamilton had entered the United States illegally in 2008. ICE said investigators initially recovered a prepaid cellphone at the crime scene but did not obtain a DNA match until Hamilton was stopped for a traffic violation about two years later; police found a loaded firearm in his car and linked his DNA to the earlier case, ICE said. ICE said Hamilton had already received a deportation order by then, was sentenced to more than a decade in prison, and was taken into ICE custody on Oct. 6 upon his release from a facility in Alden, New York.
“Immigration enforcement plays a critical role in public safety,” Acting ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said in a statement provided to The Daily Wire. “Criminal illegal aliens like these, who completely disregard our immigration laws and our criminal laws, don’t belong in the United States — and ICE is going to continue keeping our cities, communities and neighborhoods safe by arresting and removing them.”
ICE has said the highlighted deportations reflect its focus on removing noncitizens with criminal convictions as part of broader immigration enforcement efforts.
