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Reentry Resource Center - New York

Serving People from Arrest to Reintegration

Insecure Communities, Devastated Families: New Data on Immigrant Detention and Deportation Practices in New York City

  • Organization: NYU School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic; Immigrant Defense Project; Families for Freedom
  • Document Type: Report
  • Date Created: Thursday, July 26, 2012
  • Submitted: Thursday, July 26, 2012
  • Attachment(s): LINK

A data set provided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement allowed researchers to accurately assess the impact of detention and, in particular, ICE's transfer policy, on the issues that face immigrant New Yorkers in immigration court, such as access to legal counsel and the availability of relief from deportation. Furthermore, the spreadsheet provided by ICE that is the basis of this report provides hard evidence of the effects of immigration detention and deportation on New York City communities.

For example, there had previously been no way for local leaders and community members to assess how many individuals of a certain nationality were detained by ICE in New York or how many individuals in a given New York City zip code or neighborhood were detained. Likewise, there was no way for them to know how many parents of U.S. citizen children were swept into the system. Other issues, like the frequency of bond settings for New Yorkers and ICE transfers of New Yorkers to far-away detention facilities, remained equally murky.

However, while the data is in many respects new, it only confirms what groups like Families for Freedom and the Immigrant Defense Project have known for years: that ICE enforcement in New York City is terrorizing the city's immigrant community.