The U.S. immigration system routinely detains and deports immigrants based on an arrest or criminal conviction — tearing them away from livelihood, family, and community. But when deciding who to detain and deport, immigration judges often rely solely on the police report, documents that are widely recognized to be unreliable and contain serious racial biases. Recently, my colleagues and I at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) analyzed how immigration judges and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials use police reports when deciding the outcome of immigration cases. One of the things we found was that when immigration decision-makers use police reports, racism and inequities in the criminal legal system and policing carry over into the immigration system. The reliance on police reports in the immigration system disproportionately harms Black and Brown immigrants. Black and Brown people are disproportionately stopped, arrested, and racially profiled in the criminal legal system. They are, therefore, more likely to have prior police reports – including those connected with baseless arrests. Implicit racial biases also affect police’s interpretation of events during interactions. These racial biases infect police reports, which are then used in the immigration system to make life-altering detention and deportation decisions. Also, we found that immigration judges and DHS officials regularly depend on information in police reports and assume it to be accurate and irrefutable, even though police reports are widely recognized to be unreliable in other areas of the law and are considered “hearsay” evidence in the criminal legal system. Take Luis’ case: Luis spent months in immigration detention because the immigration judge at his bond hearing refused to believe that the allegations in the police report from a recent arrest were false. The police report falsely alleged Luis to be driving under the influence, when in fact he was a passenger. Luis’ unnecessary detention separated him from his wife and daughter. The overuse of inherently unreliable police reports throughout the immigration system violates due process, harms immigrants, and exacerbates racial biases. There are a number of concrete steps that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and DHS can take to reduce the harmful consequences of using police reports in the immigration system. These include training judges and DHS officials about the unreliable nature of police reports and ending the use of police reports from ongoing or pending criminal cases or in cases where there was no conviction. If you want to learn more about this issue and how it harms people in our communities, check out NIJC’s recent policy brief, Prejudicial and Unreliable: The Role of Police Reports in U.S. Immigration Detention & Deportation Decisions. And if you found this interesting, spread the word! Retweet NIJC's Twitter thread or like and share on Facebook. Thank you for helping to create a more equitable and humane immigration system! -Nayna Gupta
Associate Director of Policy, National Immigrant Justice Center | 
