Putting TRAC to Work
News Organizations
The Texas Tribune
December 2, 2021
The number of undocumented immigrants in detention centers has increased by more than 50% since Biden took office By Uriel J. García
	On Oct. 1, a recorded 22,129 immigrants were in ICE detention centers, a 56% increase since Biden took office, according to statistics compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, also known as TRAC. Overall, 75% of ICE detainees have no criminal record — ICE classifies a person as a convicted criminal even if the crime is as innocuous as not keeping a dog on a leash, according to TRAC’s analysis. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, the number of people in ICE detention was 38,000, according to TRAC’s analysis. Just before Biden took office in January 2021, the number of detainees decreased to as low as 15,000 — a 60% drop. That downward trend continued for the first month of the Biden administration before the number of ICE detainees started to rise. External Link
	Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University Copyright 2021