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Abstract
In an effort to target dangerous criminals in the United States illegally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) developed the nationwide deportation programme called Secure Communities. Ostensibly a nationwide programme, the use of this programme instead varies widely across the United States, with some jurisdictions seeing large numbers of deportations, with many others seeing none. Employing ICE deportation data and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models, we examine what accounts for this variation. We find that local political attitudes play a role, with Republican-leaning jurisdictions and those in states that support restrictive state-level immigration witnessing more deportations. Perhaps surprisingly, jurisdictions with the most crime actually saw fewer. These dynamics were similar for models predicting both the number of deportations of individuals with criminal records and those without them. Instead of being driven by a desire to remove high-level criminal undocumented aliens, we conclude instead that the dynamics of this federal immigration enforcement effort are influenced by the local political setting.
Notes
[1] See ‘Activated Jurisdictions’, http://www.ice.gov/doclib/secure-communities/pdf/sc-activated.pdf (accessed August 27, 2013).
[2] It should be noted that crossing the border illegally is a criminal offense (misdemeanour), which traditional law enforcement officers do have the authority to enforce (see Creek and Yoder Citation2012). Nevertheless, in such instances where traditional law enforcement officers can enforce a criminal immigration violation, the office must actually witness the crime.
[3] See ICE's website for the agency's statement that it ‘prioritizes the removal of criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to public safety’. ICE also states this is its goal in its description of Secure Communities: http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/ (accessed September 23, 2011). The programme's goal of apprehending high-level criminals is also discussed in a letter from ICE's former director, John Morton, to all the agency's employees. See http://www.rmlegal.com/documents/ICE-John-Morton-2010-Prioirty-Memo.pdf, June 30, 2010 (accessed December 4, 2011).
[4] John Morton to All Field Office Directors, All Special Agents in Charge, and All Chief Counsel, Memorandum. June 17, 2011. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. http://www.ice.gov/doclib/secure-communities/pdf/prosecutorial-discretion-memo.pdf (accessed February 1, 2014).
[5] Morton to All Field Office Directors, 2–3.
[6] For a description of the 24 ERO regions, see http://www.ice.gov/contact/ero/ (accessed July 19, 2014). ICE provides very little information about its subordinate offices located within regions, but there is some information provided at the ‘Homeland Security Investigations’, http://www.ice.gov/contact/inv/ (accessed July 16, 2014). You can also read more about the work of IEAs in Capps et al. (Citation2011) and Armenta (Citation2012).
[7] This excludes Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. It should also be noted that a suspect may not necessarily end up being detained even if an IEC officer issues a detainer. See http://www.ice.gov/news/library/factsheets/detainer-faqs.htm (accessed February 1, 2014).
[8] See ‘ERO Detention and Reporting Information Line’: https://www.ice.gov/about/offices/enforcement-removal-operations/detention-information-line.htm (accessed July 19, 2014).
[9] See Letter from John Morton, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to All ICE Employees, June 30, 2010, http://www.rmlegal.com/documents/ICE-John-Morton-2010-Prioirty-Memo.pdf (accessed December 4, 2011). Also see ICE's website for the agency's statement that it ‘prioritizes the removal of criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to public safety’. ICE also states this is its goal in its description of Secure Communities: http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/ (accessed September 23, 2011).
[10] See ICE's discussion of Secure Communities for the agency's priority of removing ‘criminal aliens’, ‘who pose a threat to public safety’. http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/ (accessed November 11, 2013).
[11] John Morton to All Field Office Directors, All Special Agents in Charge, and All Chief Counsel, Memorandum, p. 4.
[12] See Letter from John Morton, p. 2.
[13] It is to be noted that not all jurisdictions participating in Secure Communities are counties. A small number are cities and are reported at the municipal level.
[14] ICE did briefly report information on the number of immigrants administratively detained. No reason is given in reports as to why this information is no longer reported. From the best we can tell, ICE stopped releasing this information in 2011.
[15] Model 3 contains deportation numbers of individuals with no criminal record prior to being deported by ICE. Although all these are non-criminals, some have prior immigration violations such as failing to leave after receiving a final order of removal or having a prior removal case.
[16] As mentioned earlier, entering without inspection can be a misdemeanour but only if the person is caught in the act. Individuals in Model 4 who did enter without inspection were not caught in the act but are simply being flagged by ICE as being ‘undocumented’ after they entered the country.
[17] See Secure Communities’ ‘IDENT/IAFIS Interoperability’ statistics, p. 2: http://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/sc-stats/nationwide_interop_stats-fy2013-to-date.pdf (September 5, 2014).