ICE Data Released Today: ICE Almost Doubles Detainers Issued from Same Time in 2015

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VIDEO: While Trump is deporting people, US citizens are protecting them/us

A journalist asked today about how the arrests under Trump compared with Obama.  It turns out that today Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a report indicating that between January 28 and February 3, 2017 the agency had issued 3,083 detainers throughout the United States, which is about 45% of the 6,975 people for whom ICE issued detainers in the entire month of February, 2015, according to government data hosted by Syracuse University's TRAC.

(Detainers are typically sent by ICE to law enforcement agencies, usually jails or prisons.  The detainers may be for someone who was arrested and not convicted, someone who is set to be released immediately, or could be for someone serving a prison sentence, so that the LEA notifies ICE when the person is being released from that agency's custody.  In other words, ICE may not take immediate custody of those for whom the detainers are issued.)

If ICE numbers stay on track, the agency will have issued detainers for 12,332 people for the month of February, 2017, or 177% of the number detained during the same period in 2015.

Also of note: ICE says just 206 detainers were declined during the one week of January 28 - February 3, 2017.

CAUTION:  The government's data on detention and deportations suck.  I am reporting data the government has made publicly available, but only time and careful research will clarify if these data are in fact accurate.  TRAC includes similar caveats
in its reports as well.

UPDATE: THIS JUST IN FROM TRAC:
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Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse  
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

Greetings. Today Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued its first weekly report on detainers that it said had been refused by non-federal law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, the information ICE released is very limited and selective.

At the same time ICE released its report, the agency has started withholding other more comprehensive detainer-by-detainer information that ICE previously released to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. ICE does not claim the withheld information is exempt from disclosure, it simply claims past releases were discretionary and it is no longer willing to make many of these details available to the public.

Unfortunately, because of these ICE refusals, TRAC is unable to update its online free web query tool that allows the public to view all detainers as well as notices issued to each local law enforcement agency, month-by-month, during both the Bush and Obama Administrations, and then track what happened. TRAC's apps cover not simply whether a detainer was refused, but whether ICE actually took the person into custody. They also show how often deportation ultimately occurred following the use of a detainer. To view these TRAC online tools see:

   Detainers: http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/detain/
   Removals: http://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/remove/

In contrast, the limited information in ICE's new weekly report makes meaningful comparisons difficult. ICE's report does not provide any information on how many detainers the local law enforcement agency may have received in total, listing only those that ICE recorded as refused. The public also does not know, for example, how often ICE issued a detainer but then decided not to take the person into custody. Or having taken individuals into custody, found it did not have a legal basis to deport them.

ICE's report does not provide any information about the content of the detainer itself, or even whether the original detainer request met legal requirements that were outlined in the Department of Homeland Security's November 2014 memorandum regarding limits on its legal authority to issue detainers.

David Burnham and Susan B. Long, co-directors  
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse  
Syracuse University  
Suite 360, Newhouse II  
Syracuse, NY 13244-2100  
315-443-3563