Growth in ICE Detention Fueled by Immigrants with No Criminal Conviction

According to data recently obtained by TRAC, the growth in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (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.


Figure 1. Total Number of Detainees with and without Criminal Convictions Held by ICE at End of Month
(Click for larger image)

Figure 1 is based on TRAC's 14 "snapshots" of detention data, each one including case- by-case anonymized data of all individuals in ICE's custody on the last calendar day of the month. Figure 1 illustrates the remarkable consistency in the number of detainees with criminal convictions even as the total number of detainees fluctuates across a 4- year span of data. This suggests that the number of detainees with criminal convictions has its own inertia. Indeed, changes in presidential administration - as well as changes in ICE's own enforcement priorities that accompany each administration - appear to have little effect on the total number of detained immigrants with criminal convictions.

Rather, most of the action is related to variation in ICE's custody of detainees with no criminal convictions. Table 1 illustrates this change, as well. In March 2015, 61% of detainees had criminal convictions and 39% had no criminal conviction. But by April 2019, the proportion flipped completely: only 36% of detainees had criminal convictions while detainees without criminal convictions reached 64%. This is all the more significant as the total number of detainees grew substantially. ICE's increased focus on detainees with no criminal conviction is driving the expansion in the total number of detainees across the United States.

Table 1. Details of ICE Detainee Data by Criminal Conviction History
  Conviction No Conviction  
Date Number Percent Number Percent Total
March 31, 2015 15,781 61% 9,999 39% 25,780
September 30, 2015 16,419 52% 14,992 48% 31,411
March 31, 2016 16,208 52% 15,210 48% 31,418
September 30, 2016 17,415 45% 21,395 55% 38,810
October 31, 2016 17,628 43% 23,535 57% 41,163
September 30, 2017 18,686 50% 18,754 50% 37,440
October 31, 2017 19,264 49% 20,414 51% 39,678
November 30, 2017 18,949 47% 21,449 53% 40,398
February 28, 2018 19,207 47% 21,235 53% 40,442
March 31, 2018 19,099 46% 22,169 54% 41,268
June 30, 2018 18,515 42% 25,920 58% 44,435
November 30, 2018 17,922 39% 28,357 61% 46,279
December 31, 2018 17,733 37% 29,753 63% 47,486
April 30, 2019 17,618 36% 31,778 64% 49,396

Why Detainees' Criminal History Matters

Because the relationship between criminality and immigration enforcement is of great interest to the public yet often confusing for non-specialists, TRAC provides the following clarifications about criminality and immigrant detention. First, the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed that immigrant detention is a civil form of custody which is distinct from incarceration in that it is not intended to be used as a criminal punishment. This means that the detainees included in this report are not in detention because they are serving out a sentence related to their conviction. Rather, when non-citizens are sentenced as part of a criminal conviction, they serve out criminal sentences within the federal, state, and local prisons. In contrast, ICE oversees much of the civil immigrant detention system. Second, for many of the detainees described here as "criminal", the criminal convictions on record represent crimes that do not neatly conform to popular stereotypes about criminality, including non-violent crimes, simple traffic citations, or immigration violations. Third, many detainees listed as "criminal" received a conviction years or even decades in the past and served out their sentences, probations, and satisfied other conditions associated with their convictions. Finally, although TRAC relies on the criminal/non-criminal distinction for this report, a distinction which is common within ICE's own reporting, TRAC does not in any way promote a value distinction between immigrants with criminal convictions and immigrants without criminal convictions. Using ICE definitions, in fact, most U.S. citizens have engaged in some form of "criminal activity" such as speeding, jay- walking, and other minor infractions of the law.

Despite these qualifications, criminal history remains an important aspect of immigrant detention and immigration control overall. ICE officers may use criminality to determine bond amounts, conditions of release and probation, and level of security while in detention. Immigration judges may also take criminal history into consideration when adjusting bond amounts and adjudicating various applications for deportation relief. Some criminal convictions even render non-citizens ineligible for certain visas and immigration benefits. The criminal histories of ICE detainees, therefore, have considerable consequences for the outcomes of immigration cases. Significant changes in the composition of detainees with criminal histories, as we see here, could be tied to specific national or regional ICE policies, and could signal widespread changes in how ICE is using its discretion over the detention of non- citizens.

Most Detainees with no Criminal History Held in Few Detention Centers

In addition to finding higher rates of detainees with no criminal convictions over time, TRAC also finds that the distribution of detainees without criminal convictions is institutionally uneven: the majority (85%) of ICE's nearly 32,000 detainees with no criminal history in April 2019 are held in just one-third of ICE's 214 detention centers. Table 2 below includes all detention centers where 50% or more of the detained population had no criminal conviction on record. Excluded from the table are detention centers with less than 10 detainees. The 70 detention centers in Table 2 held a combined 26,767 detainees with no criminal conviction.

Significant among the detention centers listed below are the South Texas Family Residential Facility and Karnes County Civil Detention Facility, both of which detain mothers with children who are seeking asylum in the United States. Many detention centers, such as Port Isabel SPC and El Paso SPC, are located near the U.S.-Mexico border. Yet many are not: Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, Stewart Detention Facility in Georgia, and Krome North SPC in Florida are located far from ports of entry and serve as key nodes in ICE's nationwide detention network. Still others, such as Tacoma ICE Processing Center and CCA Northeastern Ohio Correctional[1] are actually much closer to the U.S.'s northern border.

About this Data

The data in this report is derived from a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by TRAC for anonymized case-by-case data for the total number of individuals in detention on the final day of the month in question. The quality and comprehensiveness of the data provides unique insight into the composition of detainees and trends across time. However, the data contains several trade-offs. Among these, delays and non-responses by ICE regarding TRAC's FOIA requests result in historically inconsistent or "spotty" snapshots of immigrant detention. Further, each snapshot includes within its frame all detainees on one day of the month, not the total number of individuals who pass through detention in a month. This data only includes individuals in ICE custody, and does not include individuals detained near the border by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) nor minors detained by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). Despite these trade-offs, TRAC's data provides much-needed insight into the quantity and composition of immigrant detention in the U.S.

Detention

Explore Detention Data Using TRAC's Interactive Tool

The data for this report is available to the public through TRAC's recently-updated online detention tool, which allows users to explore data about ICE detainees for themselves using a number of factors for each detention facility including nationality, specific criminal conviction offense, and how long detainees have been in ICE custody.

Table 2: ICE Detention Centers with 50% or More Detainees with no Criminal Conviction
at the end of April 2019[2].
(Click headings to sort)
Detention Center Name Total
Detainees
Criminal Conviction No Criminal Conviction Percent of Detainees Without Criminal Conviction
South Texas Fam Residential Center 878 8 870 99.1%
El Paso Holdroom 337 6 331 98.2%
T Don Hutto Residential Center 501 13 488 97.4%
Tallahatchie Co Corr Facility 1,213 42 1,171 96.5%
Karnes County Civil Det. Facility 645 29 616 95.5%
Richwood Cor Center 564 28 536 95.0%
El Valle Detention Facility 785 42 743 94.6%
Allen Parish Public Safety Complex 49 3 46 93.9%
Phoenix Dist Office 83 6 77 92.8%
Facility 8 Detention Facility 52 4 48 92.3%
River Correctional Center 528 47 481 91.1%
Coastal Bend Det. Facility 249 23 226 90.8%
Charleston County Correct 138 13 125 90.6%
La Salle Co Regional Det. Center 116 11 105 90.5%
San Luis Regional Det Center 213 21 192 90.1%
Brooks County Jail (Contract) 159 17 142 89.3%
Denver CDF II 404 44 360 89.1%
Jackson Parish Correctional Center 861 96 765 88.9%
Imperial Regional Adult Det Fac 662 80 582 87.9%
Bossier Parish Cor. Center 268 33 235 87.7%
Broward Transitional Center 677 98 579 85.5%
Port Isabel SPC 1,128 171 957 84.8%
Laredo Processing Center 398 67 331 83.2%
Rio Grande Detention Center 646 110 536 83.0%
Cibola County Correctional Center 584 100 484 82.9%
Eloy Federal Contract Fac 1,354 239 1,115 82.3%
Iah Secure Adult Det. Facility 858 154 704 82.1%
Seneca County Jail 44 8 36 81.8%
Florence SPC 414 86 328 79.2%
Montgomery County Jail, TX 863 183 680 78.8%
La Palma Correctional Center 1,718 379 1,339 77.9%
Teller County Jail 31 7 24 77.4%
Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center 790 190 600 75.9%
Otay Mesa Detention Center 958 251 707 73.8%
East Hidalgo Detention Center 75 21 54 72.0%
Elizabeth Contract D.F. 281 79 202 71.9%
Rolling Plains Detention Center 242 69 173 71.5%
Webb County Detention Center (CCA) 419 120 299 71.4%
El Paso SPC 822 242 580 70.6%
AZ Rem Op Coord Center (Arocc) 71 21 50 70.4%
CCA Northeast OH Corrects 279 85 194 69.5%
Folkston ICE Processing Center 690 219 471 68.3%
Monroe County Detention-Dorm 59 19 40 67.8%
Plymouth Co Cor Facility 357 118 239 66.9%
Okmulgee County Jail 208 70 138 66.3%
St. Clair County Jail 68 23 45 66.2%
Stewart Detention Center 1,816 679 1,137 62.6%
Suffolk Hoc Sbay 147 57 90 61.2%
Alamance Co. Det. Facility 51 20 31 60.8%
Florence Staging Facility 237 94 143 60.3%
Chase County Jail 78 31 47 60.3%
Denver Contract Det. Fac. 930 372 558 60.0%
Frederick County Det. Cen 49 20 29 59.2%
Adelanto Ice Processing Center 1,678 686 992 59.1%
Otero Co Processing Center 939 387 552 58.8%
Cambria County Jail, PA 41 17 24 58.5%
James A Musick Facility 185 77 108 58.4%
Houston Contract Det. Fac. 981 409 572 58.3%
Clay County Justice Center 28 12 16 57.1%
Irwin County Detention Center 833 360 473 56.8%
South Texas Ice Processing Center 1,782 774 1,008 56.6%
Kenosha County Jail 172 76 96 55.8%
Caroline Detention Facility 288 134 154 53.5%
Tacoma ICE Processing Center 1,332 621 711 53.4%
Strafford Co. Correction 110 52 58 52.7%
Krome North SPC 799 386 413 51.7%
Orange County Jail, NY 157 78 80 51.0%
Calhoun Co., Battle Cr, MI 187 92 95 50.8%
Davidson Co. Sheriff Dept 10 5 5 50.0%
West Texas Detention Facility 662 331 331 50.0%
Total 36,231 9,465 26,767  

Footnotes

[1] While ICE continues to use "CCA" with this facility, the company known as CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) has since rebranded itself as CoreCivic.

[2] Only detention centers with at least 10 detainees were included in this table.

TRAC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit data research center affiliated with the Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Whitman School of Management, both at Syracuse University. For more information, to subscribe, or to donate, contact trac@syr.edu or call 315-443-3563.