The number of criminal cases filed in federal court against illegal aliens has surged in Michigan this year under President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice.
The jump in numbers is notable. During all of 2024, Former President Joe Biden’s administration prosecuted just 70 migrants for criminal acts. But just two months into Trump’s second term, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan has already filed 46 such cases, the Detroit News reported.
Illegal aliens from eight foreign countries — including Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico — have been charged as part of the 2025 crackdown. Their offenses include drug trafficking, illegal possession of firearms, child pornography crimes, and illegal reentry into the U.S.
In one such federal case filed this year, prosecutors accused Yemeni national Haidar Abo Ayedh Almuntaser of illegally crossing the U.S. border from Mexico. Almuntaser arrived in California after allegedly transferring thousands of dollars to human smugglers.
“The money wired as part of this conspiracy allowed Almuntaser to astonishingly and successfully cross eight international borders without a passport,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Straus noted.
“These cases represent a fraction of the criminal aliens we and our federal partners arrest every day across the Detroit Sector that’s making this country safer than it was just a few short months ago,” Chief Patrol Agent John Morris of the Detroit Border Patrol sector said in a statement.
Sentencings for federal immigration crimes committed in Michigan’s Eastern District surged during the first Trump presidency and then collapsed to a trickle during the Biden years, going from a high of 193 in 2018, to just 24 in 2022, the Detroit News reported, citing data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse nonprofit.
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