PHOTO: Rudi Reit
Creative Commons
Fresh off a recent disaster where they illegally released the names of thousands of vulnerable asylum seekers in the U.S., the DHS announced another major data screw-up. This time it concerned so-called “alternatives to detention.”
ICE has informed TRAC that Alternatives to Detention (ATD) data previously released by the agency on several occasions between August 2022 and December 2022, as well as data previously released for FY 2022, was inaccurate. TRAC therefore urges caution in interpreting the latest numbers ICE has just posted.
The data ICE has been posting for months showed that use of GPS ankle monitors had been increasing which TRAC previously reported. ICE now reports this is incorrect, that ankle monitor usage is in fact way down, not up. Adding to the confusion, ICE frequently posts data, replaces it, and replaces it again without any indication that changes have taken place, or which set are the “correct” numbers.
ICE data reporting problems extend beyond the GPS ankle monitor usage. ICE’s new data for FY 2022 significantly revised the previously numbers for every single one of the ATD reported technologies—not only GPS, but also SmartLINK, and VoiceID, as well. Not only did the use of GPS monitors drop, but the public now learned that one-in-nine (11%) were not being monitored with the use of any technology at all! Also materially revised were the costs for technology during FY 2022 and average lengths in the program, as well as what was happening in a substantial number of local AOR offices across the country.
So, instead of ankle-monitor use increasing, as previously reported, it substantially decreased: The polar opposite. Yet, by the time this “correction” surfaces, media reports and sometimes even actions based on the bogus data have already taken place. Often, the “belated truth” becomes “back-page news,” if news at all.
Let’s be clear. These aren’t minor “rounding errors” or “adjustments or corrections” that don’t materially affect the picture painted by the original “data dump.” They are major screw-ups that basically “change the answer from A to B or from Yes to No.”
This the just the latest stunning indication of management failure within the Biden immigration bureaucracy. It goes along with “task avoidance” on very achievable fixes at the border, endless backlogs, completely dysfunctional Immigration Courts, abandonment of the rule of law, and lack of any overall values-based legal strategy when it comes to immigration, human rights, and racial justice.
You can read the complete TRAC report on the latest DHS bungling here: TRAC DHS Data Wrong . Just “warning” folks not to trust DHS data isn’t enough. In a data-riven world, the public deserves and requires competent management and accurate data from our immigration agencies!
🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!
PWS
12-15-22