Report Analyzes Data on Immigrant Detainees

The Center for Migration Studies has issued a report,  “Piecing Together the US Immigrant Detention Puzzle One Night at a Time: An Analysis of All Persons in DHS-ICE Custody on September 22, 2012,” which analyzes demographic data collected on immigrant detainees.  The data captures information as of September 22, 2012, and compares it to similar data received by the Center on January 25, 2009.

The report’s findings, as described in the Center’s press release issued today, include the following:

• “DHS-ICE held 35,197 people in its custody.
• 18,470 detainees had pending removal cases, 14,674 had been ordered removed, and 2,053 cases included no information on whether or not the detainee had been ordered removed.
• Thirty-eight percent of detainees were subject to summary, expedited, and administrative removal processes.
• Forty percent of detainees were from the Northern Triangle states of Central America and 34 percent from Mexico, compared to 37 percent from Mexico and 28 percent from Central America on January 25, 2009.
• Detainees were held in 189 facilities, with 77 percent concentrated in nine states and 51 percent in the four states that border Mexico.
• DHS-ICE held 67 percent of all detainees in facilities owned and/or administered by for-profit prison corporations, including 90 percent of the detainees in the 21 facilities with the largest detainee populations.
• Forty-seven percent of detainees had been held for less than 30 days, and 4,179 (12 percent) had been held for more than six-months.
• Sixty-one percent of detainees had criminal convictions, compared to 42 percent on January 25, 2009.
• Less than 10 percent of all detainees on September 22, 2012 had committed violent crimes and substantial percentages — a higher rate than on January 25, 2009 — had committed traffic and immigration violations.”

-JKoh