Greetings. This installment of Immigration Disclosures highlights a report on Torrance County Detention Facility; the American Immigration Council’s appearance at the Sixth World Conference on Remedies to Racial and Social Inequality in Cape Town, South Africa; an Immigration Impact blog about a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) report on unaccompanied minors; and a factsheet on birthright citizenship in the United States.
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In September, the Council’s transparency team co-authored a blog about DHS OIG report noting that 32,000 unaccompanied minors did not show up to their immigration court dates. While some media outlets and lawmakers mischaracterized the reports suggesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lost track of the children, the Council’s blog was featured in other media reports that explained the discrepancy, such as this article in Univision. Read our blog here.
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The Council presented at the Sixth World Conference on Remedies to Racial and Social Inequality at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. The Council and the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) discussed a report published last year on the role Customs and Border Protection (CBP) played in quashing peaceful protests organized in response to George Floyd’s murder by police in Minneapolis in 2020. Read more here.
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Over the years, anti-immigrant political factions have tried restricting birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. However, the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution and decades of Supreme Court precedent have established that any person born in the United States is a citizen by birth. A new factsheet by the Council explores the origins of birthright citizenship in the United States and current Supreme Court interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment. Read our blog here and our fact sheet here.
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The Council Published a Report on ICE Data in Torrance County Detention Facility Between 2021-2022 |
On October 24, the Council published a report analyzing data it received from ICE regarding detention stays at Torrance County Detention Facility between January 1, 2021, and November 17, 2022. In December 2021, the Council requested this data after receiving reports from Haitian nationals at Torrance of poor treatment and medical neglect, as well as obstacles to engaging legal counsel. The Council filed a lawsuit in August 2022 to compel the agency to disclose the information, prompting ICE to finally release the dataset in June 2023. The report sought to analyze ICE placement trends in the facility, and to discern whether disparities existed for Haitian nationals and other vulnerable populations in detention.
The report found that ICE did not adequately keep data on race and ethnicity. This ultimately presented an obstacle for researchers to fully analyze racial disparities at Torrance. For example, ICE barely reported ethnicity of individuals detained. Also, ICE classified the overwhelming majority of individuals at Torrance as racially “white.” The poor classifications inevitably skewed analysis on correlations between race and detention lengths. Initially, the data showed that Black and white individuals had approximately the same lengths in detention. However, researchers uncovered that individuals from non-European countries marked as racially “white” had some of the highest lengths in detention. By classifying migrants through geographic location, researchers found that Africans had the highest lengths in detention.
ICE placement trends into and out of Torrance demonstrated that ICE continued to place people at Torrance despite warning signs of poor conditions of confinement. In 2021, numerous lawmakers, watchdog groups, and inspectors insisted that Torrance was not equipped to house migrants. The data showed a growing population at the facility despite multiple warnings. The report placed particular focus on ICE placements of Haitian nationals into Torrance between September and December 2021. In September, ICE placed over 50 Haitians apprehended during the incident in Del Rio, Texas into Torrance to await the processing of their asylum cases. Documents uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal a series of emails demonstrating that attorneys representing these Haitian migrants faced months-long obstacles to contact their clients. Despite attorney access issues, ICE transferred close to 50 more Haitians into the facility during this time period. As advocacy efforts on behalf of Haitian nationals emerged, ICE finally began releasing Haitians from Torrance.
In 2022, ICE placement patterns shifted. ICE seemingly began acknowledging public outcries to shut down Torrance, and at several points began rapidly depopulating the facility. However, as the population dropped to very low numbers, ICE reversed course and began rapidly repopulating the facility continuing its pattern of abuse.
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Adequately documenting race and ethnicity allows researchers to analyze whether disparities among racial groups exist. ICE’s lack of consistent procedures in documenting these variables inevitably skewed racial analysis.
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ICE placement patterns at Torrance show that ICE placed people at Torrance despite serious concerns about conditions at the detention facility. At times, the plunging population at Torrance suggested a possible depopulation and an end to detention at Torrance. However, before numbers could reach zero, ICE would rapidly repopulate the facility.
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Attorney access issues remain one of the largest concerns at Torrance. The data and FOIA documents showed that while individuals in detention were barred from receiving legal counsel, ICE continued placing and transferring vulnerable populations into the facility.
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The American Immigration Council works to hold the
government accountable on immigration issues. We harness freedom of information requests, litigation, and advocacy to expose the wrongdoing and promote transparency within immigration agencies. Make a donation today.
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