The Failure of ICE’s Computerized Risk Detention Analysis

Photo by A Syn

Since 2013, ICE has used a computerized Risk Classification Assessment to determine whether to detain or release migrants facing deportation.

Mark Noferi and Robert Koulish have analyzed the RCA in their recent paper: The Immigration Detention Risk Assessment, 29 Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 45 (2015). Noferi and Koulish conclude that RCA has not reduced over-detention because mandatory detention laws often dictate the outcome of detention decisions.

Instead of fixing the problem of over-detention, RCA may have simply added “a scientific veneer to enforcement that remains institutionally predisposed towards detention and control.”

For more on this issue, see the Immigration Council’s blogpost ICE’s Computerized Detention Decision-Maker Can’t Work Because of Mandatory Detention Laws. The post contains links to the documents obtained by Noferi and Koulish under FOIA which form the basis for their conclusions.

-KitJ