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This is remarkable. A just-released Syracuse University study indicates that the government is overstating its enforcement of the immigration laws by a staggering amount.
According to TRAC, Syracuse’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has overstated the number of immigration law violators apprehended by a 5:1 ratio. And that’s the good news. Deportations were overstated by 24:1 and detentions by 34:1.
TRAC says that ICE has represented, not only in press releases but in congressional testimony, that in 2005 it apprehended 102,034. The records it produced, however, show only 21,339. It further claimed 166,075 deportations but documented only 6,906; and said it had detained 233,417 when the paperwork shows only 6,778.
TRAC notes that the Obama administration delayed complying with its FOIA request for nearly two years (it was submitted in May 2010). TRAC argues that ICE has either geometrically inflated its performance or grossly violated FOIA in withholding information. ICE, according to TRAC, has also attempted to obstruct compliance with FOIA by claiming that Syracuse University is not an academic institution, by insisting that previously provided statistical data was suddenly considered “unavailable,” and by charging over a half-million dollars in processing fees.
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