Tracking immigration data

As part of the Trump administration's new immigration policies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began publishing something called the "Declined Detainer Outcome Report." The report was designed to shame so-called "sanctuary" counties and cities into honoring ICE detainer requests in local jails. 

The report, which was published for only six weeks before being temporarily suspended because of frequent errors. 

I wrote two stories about the report. In the first, I addressed the creation of the report and how it didn't show the same kind of data with the same transparency that ICE had been providing up until Trump's inauguration. In the second, I looked at some of the bigger errors and some of the problems with the reports that had been published. 

From the second story:

In the second report, Kern County, California, appeared on the list as the third-most noncompliant county in the country, with 65 detainers issued.

But Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood’s jail does not use detainers at all. ICE officers work in the jail and have access to the jail’s booking records and can take someone into custody at any time. There was no way the 65 refusals were correct, he says.

“It set off alarms because we had zero,” Youngblood said.