‘Regret’: ICE Apologizes For ‘Miscalculation’ Of Illegal Immigrant Data After DCNF Exposes Major Errors

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) apologized Thursday for the “miscalculation” of public illegal immigrant data after the Daily Caller News Foundation exposed major errors in the agency’s statistics, according to a statement.

The DCNF reported Dec. 1 that ICE underreported the number of illegal immigrants released from custody that aren’t on electronic monitors by more than 18,000%. The agency disclosed to attendees of a private event on Dec. 1 that there are 49,459 illegal immigrants that aren’t surveilled with tracking technology as of Nov. 14, while its own website at the time showed there were 266 as of Nov. 19.

The DCNF also reported Tuesday that ICE misreported the number of illegal immigrants released with GPS tracking by nearly 600%. The agency told the attendees of the Dec. 1 event that 8,118 illegal immigrants are monitored using GPS trackers as of Nov. 14, but ICE’s website at the time stated that there are 56,805 illegal immigrants monitored using GPS as of Nov. 19.

“Upon further inspection of what participants were provided against what was publicly available online, it became clear there was a data miscalculation. Teams worked quickly to address and reconcile the issue, now updated on ICE.gov. We regret ICE provided erroneous ATD enrollment data and worked to resolve the miscalculation going forward,” an ICE spokesperson told the DCNF.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently hosted a symposium to share ideas and inform future concepts for the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program. The event was held at ICE headquarters with more than 100 stakeholders from nongovernmental organizations, academia, and private industry in attendance. Prior to the event, attendees were provided handouts with background information on the ATD program,” the ICE spokesperson added.

The recent seminar featured an “abolish ICE” activist, Peter Markowitz,  a law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University and director of the school’s Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic, who in 2019 wrote a “blueprint” for scrapping the agency.

Following the DCNF’s reports exposing the issues, ICE updated its website Wednesday to say that 7,905 illegal immigrants are monitored using GPS tracking and that 49,166 have no electronic monitoring, roughly the numbers the DCNF previously reported.

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