WASHINGTON — The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) today issued a report exploring whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is capable of meeting its legal and case management responsibilities in light of its use of information systems that may not be collecting all the data necessary for compliance with legal, detention management and humanitarian standards.
A new report, Immigrant Detention: Can ICE Meet its Legal Imperatives and Case Management Responsibilities?, analyzes select data for all 32,000 detainees held in ICE custody on one night in January 2009 and examines the sufficiency of ICE's database and case tracking system. The question has taken on new urgency in light of the ICE announcement in August that it plans to revamp its detention system to reduce its reliance on local jails and private prisons, address longstanding concerns related to conditions of confinement and centralize management.
"ICE may well need more information on detainees than it currently collects, particularly data that can inform and guide its legal and operational decisions related to custody reviews, eligibility for release or parole, placement in alternative-to-detention programs or even claims to US citizenship," said MPI Vice President for Programs Donald Kerwin, a co-author of the report. "This report provides a roadmap for meeting the data needs essential for the new ICE detention initiative to succeed as it attempts to move from a criminal incarceration model to a civil detention system."
Some highlights of the report's analysis of the ICE data on detainees in the system on January 25, 2009:
"The detention data highlight the need for ICE information systems that can meet the substantial challenges of a sprawling detention system, comprised of hundreds of facilities, large and small, public and private, federal and local, that holds a highly diverse population, including men and women, criminal and noncriminal detainees, the medically fragile and others," said MPI Data/Statistical Analyst Serena Yi-Ying Lin, who co-authored the report.
The report makes a range of recommendations, among them that ICE:
Said Kerwin: "Many government and non-government reports have criticized ICE for failing to comply with its legal mandates and management imperatives. This report places these criticisms in a new light by asking whether ICE can fully comply with the law, effectively manage its sprawling detention system and create a system better suited to civil detainees."