Fox continues to spread the false claim that immigrants with criminal records are the only people at risk of deportation in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation blitz, this time on Fox’s Spanish-language news show, Fox Noticias, on the Fox Deportes channel.

During the February 5 edition of Fox Noticias, host Rachel Campos-Duffy asked her guest, Texas Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, if it was correct that the current deportation efforts exclusively target “criminals, murderers, rapists, and members of Tren de Aragua and MS-13.” Cleveland affirmed this, adding that “the United States needs illegal workers" to work “in the fields, for construction ... cooks, cleaners, but we don't want criminals.” Campos-Duffy, later emphasized that the people currently sought for deportation do not include “those who came and crossed illegally. This phase is just for criminals.”

The Trump administration officials overseeing his immigration policy, “border czar” Tom Homan and deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, have repeatedly and publicly said that the administration’s deportation efforts would include “collateral arrests,” inevitably including immigrants without criminal records. Some elected officials have also been threatened. 

Reporting shows that migrants without criminal records have already been arrested and swept up in the deportations. The Associated Press reported that two Air Force planes landed in Colombia on January 28 with more than 200 Colombian migrants, none of whom “had criminal records in the U.S. or Colombia,” according to Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo. 

Similarly, NBC noted that of the 1,179 arrests made by ICE on January 26, only around 52% were considered “criminal arrests,” while the rest “appear to be nonviolent offenders or people who have not committed any criminal offense other than crossing the border illegally.”