The mass deportation campaign has been a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s second term. But, as the AP reports, the administration’s data sharing practices make it difficult to know what exactly that looks like.
The Trump administration has touted immigration enforcement goals like deporting 1 million people a year and arresting the “worst-of-the-worst” criminals.
But how that’s bearing out on the ground isn’t clear, because data releases under this administration are less reliable than in previous presidencies.
“When people are saying, ‘oh how does this compare to the Obama administration’ — since Obama was considered the deporter-in-chief — the fact of the matter is, to a certain extent, we actually don’t know,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph is with the Migration Policy Institute.
Bush-Joseph says researchers are increasingly relying on Freedom of Information Act requests and non-government efforts to compile data. But on the government side, even data on the basics — like who’s being arrested, where they’re being arrested and where they’re being deported — is not broken down.
“All of these top line considerations make it harder to evaluate these claims about whether or not they’re really deporting the ‘worst of the worst,’” she said.
A December report from the libertarian think tank Cato Institute used available government data and found the majority of immigrants in ICE detention have no criminal record.
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The flow of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border has remained low over the past year, but there was an uptick in apprehensions between February and March. -
The Phoenix police chief has put a sergeant on paid leave while an internal investigation of the sergeant’s behavior at an ICE protest in the East Valley is conducted. -
Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego are calling on the Department of Homeland Security to abandon its investigation into the state’s 2020 presidential election. -
Democratic Reps. Greg Stanton, Yassamin Ansari and Adelita Grijalva say they were shocked by the conditions inside the ICE holding facility at Mesa Gateway Airport on Thursday evening. -
As the New York Times reports, more than 100 of the roughly 750 immigration judges have been dismissed. About 140 permanent and temporary judges have been appointed in the wake of those firings — including former DHS prosecutors.
