ICE Report Supports My Analysis
Sometimes, it's not good to be correct
By Andrew R. Arthur on December 13, 2019
Last week I suggested that the large number of "non-criminal" detainees identified in a November 29 report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) reflected the massive influx of aliens who had been apprehended after entering illegally in FY 2019. The "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] Fiscal Year 2019 Enforcement and Removal Operations Report" proves that I was correct, but it is cold comfort, to say the least.
TRAC found (without much analysis of its own as to factors) that:
According to data recently obtained by TRAC, the growth in detention by [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/ICE-Report-Supports-My-Analysis
