PHOENIX (AZFamily) -A recent study indicates that law enforcement agencies locally in Arizona and nationwide are predominantly working together with federal immigration authorities.
They have informed ICE officials when law enforcement officers believe that an individual they've apprehended is residing in the country unlawfully. However, the matter, based on the TRAC Immigration report is because immigration agents are not apprehending those individuals or expelling them from the country.
"Detainers" refer to instances where jails hold individuals who are believed to be in the country unlawfully, notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers so they can take custody. Under the Trump administration, the frequency of these detainer cases has increased.
However, in Arizona, ICE officers only apprehend those suspects 37% of the time. This implies that for every three individuals suspected of being unauthorized immigrants, roughly two manage to evade ICE detention and potential deportation.
In the initial Trump administration, the document indicates that ICE took charge of the individual under detention 62% of the time. Currently, this rate has dropped to merely 14%.
"I believe they're certainly using fear as a strategy to prompt individuals to voluntarily depart," asserts immigration lawyer Darius Amiri. He suggests that these detainers might be pushing people to choose leaving the country themselves. "However, the presence of detainers doesn’t guarantee deportation for those involved. What I can point out is that overall focus on immigration issues has increased since Trump's reelection," he added.
In addition to encouraging self deportation, part of the reason the numbers could be lower, Amiri says, is because the process of deportation takes a while, “like I have clients who were brought in ICE custody before COVID, 2019 or 2018, and they still haven’t gotten to their final trial date and and they’re doing everything by the book.”
In the meantime, Arizona’s Family had a conversation with an ex-ICE agent who preferred to stay unnamed. "This figure seems significantly off," he stated. "It doesn’t appear accurate to me."
The report from Syracuse concludes that the rise in ice detainers while deportations are declining means immigration holds are ineffective.
But this former ICE agent is pushing back on that claim. He believes the deportations will likely increase overtime as migrants go through the legal system and exhaust their due process rights, “the only way the only two ways they would be leaving quickly is if they have a final order already or they say, OK, I’m here illegally. Just send me home.”
The report also states that most targets of detainers had no criminal convictions. Only 28% were convicted and most were for traffic violations or DUI. During the first month of the Trump administration, only 1.6% of the people that were detained by ICE ended up being deported.
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