Urging ICE to Release Essential Enforcement Data
The Council submitted an amicus brief explaining why ICE should release usable immigration data. The amicus brief was filed in ACLU IRP v. ICE, a case where the ACLU is seeking information about how individuals are impacted by ICE enforcement practices. Co-amici included immigrant rights organizations, open government groups, and researchers.
The data at the heart of the case—information about removals, detentions, apprehensions, risk classification assessments, and bond management—is critical to understanding the U.S. immigration enforcement system and how enforcement priorities were implemented. ACLU pursued this information through a FOIA request. ICE did not provide unique identifiers necessary to link records of enforcement activity to individuals in the records it released to the ACLU. As a result, the ACLU cannot analyze each person’s interactions with ICE across different datasets from the agency.
ICE has long withheld critical information about individuals subject to immigration enforcement and detention. Yet the agency conceded that it would impose no burden to provide the requested data in this case. The agency’s refusal to allow meaningful access to enforcement data prevents the public from conducting badly needed oversight.
The case raises broader questions about ICE’s lack of transparency, and what the public should demand of a well-funded law enforcement agency that holds tens of thousands of individuals in its custody on a daily basis.
Read more: Demanding ICE Provide Essential Data
