Steve King on ‘Criminal Aliens’

Rep. Steve King wrongly suggested that “28 percent of the inmates in our federal penitentiaries” are immigrants in the country illegally. About 21 percent of federal inmates are non-U.S. citizens, but that includes immigrants who came to the U.S. both legally and illegally, according to government data.

Also, King mentions just federal prisons, but most inmates are incarcerated in state prisons. And only 4 percent of state and federal inmates combined are noncitizens, the data show.

In a CNN interview, King used the term “criminal aliens,” saying that those “criminal aliens” had already “committed the crime of unlawful entry.” But the term, as used by the federal government, refers