David Bier of the Cato Institute found that between January 20 and July 28 of this year, ICE conducted more than 16,000 street arrests of immigrants who had no criminal convictions, no pending charges, and no removal orders nationwide. Over half of these arrests, nearly 9,000, took place in June and July alone. During those two months, 90 percent of the immigrants arrested had no criminal record whatsoever.

The latest Los Angeles Times poll, released August 24, offers a striking glimpse into how Californians feel about the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement policies. When shown images of immigration raids, nearly two-thirds of voters (64%) said they felt rage or sadness “because what is happening is unfair.” That was heartening for those of us who advocate for fair and just treatment of immigrants.

But another finding gave us pause. More than one in five Californians (22%) said they felt “hopeful—like justice is being served.” And nearly a third of voters agreed with the statement that ICE raids in California are primarily focused on undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes beyond immigration violations.

That belief may explain why some voters feel “justice” in seeing ICE agents storm worksites, homes, and public streets. The assumption is that these raids are a focused, surgical effort to remove dangerous individuals. The problem is that this is simply not what the evidence shows.

Recent data released by the Deportation Data Project, which compiles records obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests from ICE and Customs and Border Protection, paints a different picture. In an analysis of this data,  David Bier of the Cato Institute found that between January 20 and July 28 of this year, ICE conducted more than 16,000 street arrests of immigrants who had no criminal convictions, no pending charges, and no removal orders nationwide. Over half of these arrests, nearly 9,000, took place in June and July alone. During those two months, 90 percent of the immigrants arrested had no criminal record whatsoever.

Another  Cato Institute analysis shows that overall ICE arrests in the Los Angeles area fell 66% from July 12 to July 28 after a temporary restraining order barred the Department of Homeland Security from engaging in illegal profiling.  If ICE had truly been focused on arresting criminal immigrants, the order should have had no effect on ICE’s operations.

These are not “dangerous criminals” being rounded up. They are parents dropping their children off at school, workers on their way to job sites, and neighbors who have lived peacefully in our communities for years. The raids are indiscriminate dragnets, not precision operations.

Why does this matter? Because public support for harsh enforcement policies rests on a misperception. If voters believe ICE is targeting violent offenders, they may view raids as necessary, even just. But when the facts show that ICE is sweeping up law-abiding immigrants with no criminal history, the moral calculus changes. What looks like “justice” in the abstract is, in practice, the tearing apart of families, the destabilization of neighborhoods, and the infliction of fear on entire communities.

California has long prided itself on being a place where immigrants can build better lives. Polls consistently show that most Californians reject the Trump Administration’s punitive approach to immigration. But the gap revealed in this latest survey—between the belief that ICE targets criminals and the reality that it does not—underscores how critical it is for advocates, journalists, and community leaders to tell the truth about who these raids actually target.

Immigration enforcement is being carried out not with a scalpel, but with a sledgehammer. And the collateral damage is not abstract—it is measured in children growing up without parents, businesses losing workers overnight, and entire neighborhoods forced to live in fear.

Justice is not served when families are shattered for the sake of political theater. Justice is not served when due process is replaced by indiscriminate raids. Californians deserve to know the truth: ICE is not protecting us from dangerous criminals. It is punishing our immigrant neighbors for living, working, and raising families here.

Once that truth is fully understood, far fewer will mistake cruelty with justice.