ICE data sparse, despite releases boasting high arrests, detentions in Maryland
Despite regular news releases trumpeting arrests and detentions of immigrants, the federal immigration agency — Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE — has sharply reigned in actual data releases on its activities, and in some cases, stopped entirely since President Donald Trump took office.
In theory, ICE publishes data on its website bi-monthly and quarterly detailing arrests, removals, and detentions, as well as pertinent demographics of those individuals, such as their country of origin and the region in which they were arrested.
But the dashboard ICE uses to showcase the data hasn't been updated since Trump took office, except for some partial bimonthly statistics on arrests and detentions. A 2020 Congressional bill requires ICE to publish the bimonthly data.
At a time when fears are heightened and immigration officials are pushing for increased rates of deportation, experts say the agency needs to post its data at a faster rate.
'It's important for us to be able to see,' said Vanessa Dojaquez-Torres, practice and policy counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. 'Are they detaining as many people as they say? Are they deporting as many people as they say? Are they detaining or deporting more people than they are … letting on?'
At the same time, protests against ICE raids span the country. This week alone, protestors in Maryland gathered at three different sites because of a perception of increased ICE detentions.
ICE did not respond to repeated requests for comment by the deadline.
The banner at the top of ICE's website links to an explainer on how to self-deport.
'ICE Rio Grande Valley conducts worksite enforcement resulting in 25 arrests,' read one headline. 'ICE conducts worksite inspection at Baton Rouge massage parlors,' read another. It also features a 100-day news release, in which the agency announced 66,463 arrests of undocumented individuals since Jan. 20.
But real numbers have been hard to pin down, despite these news releases, and a number of organizations rely on the data to inform their work.
Government officials and private companies involved in the field of immigration use the data to track the effects of legislation and policies. The American Immigration Lawyers Association uses the statistics to track the effects of legislation on immigrants, said Dojaquez-Torres. The data allows her organization to determine if promises of mass deportations are coming to fruition, she added.
'It's critical to policymakers to have this kind of data that organizations like mine can analyze and compare policies and their effectiveness and compare the records of the agency over time,' said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies of the Center for Immigration Studies, an immigration think tank. Vaughan helped the first-term Trump administration design its deportation guidelines and the center's research is cited by the Trump administration on policy decisions.
Vaughan, too, uses the data, but instead uses it to track transnational gang members, as well as keep records of jails across the nation that have not cooperated with ICE.
Ernesto Castaneda, director of policy research group The Immigration Lab and professor at American University, told The Baltimore Sun that visualizing this data holds the government accountable to its goals and contrasts what administration officials say with reality.
Immigration lawyers and data analysts say they don't know why the Trump administration has delayed publication of its monthly and quarterly data. Some speculate that the arrests and detention numbers aren't hitting their desired benchmarks.
Or, it might not be a priority for the administration to publicize the data in a timely manner, said Dojaquez-Torres.
But another reason for the delay could be the sharp uptick in ICE arrests, Castaneda said.
The entire immigration system — from ICE officers to immigration courts — is overwhelmed by the amount of incoming cases, he said, and that creates a bottleneck.
It's not due to lack of personnel, but rather that the agency likely doesn't see a benefit of releasing more information, Vaughan said. But, she said, that shouldn't be the case.
'ICE is one of the biggest law enforcement agencies in the country with an important mission, and the public should have access to information about what they're doing,' Vaughan said.
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