What Does TRAC's New 'Non-Criminal' Detention Data Mean?
Confusing report leaves out key information
By Andrew R. Arthur on December 3, 2019
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) issued a report last week captioned "Growth in ICE Detention Fueled by Immigrants with No Criminal Conviction". That report is notable for what it does not analyze, more so than what it does.
It begins:
According to data recently obtained by TRAC, the growth in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the past four years has been fueled by a steady increase in the number of detainees with no criminal history. On the last day of April 2019, ICE held about 50,000 people in detention centers nationwide. Nearly 32,000 — or 64% — of detainees had no criminal conviction on record. This is up from 10,000 — or just under 40% of the nationwide total — four years prior. Over the same period, the total number of detainees with criminal convictions remained consistently between a low of 16,000 in March 2015 to a high of just over 19,000 in late 2017 and early 2018.
https://cis.org/Arthur/What-Does-TRACs-New-NonCriminal-Detention-Data-Mean
