The ICE agency failed to publish mandated detention data on schedule for the second time this year, raising concerns about transparency and accountability. Despite claims of being "the most transparent in history," delays in releasing immigration enforcement information persist, hindering public access to critical data. The author urges ICE and Congress to ensure timely publication of this information to support informed oversight.

ICE Fails Again to Publish Required Detention Data

For the second time this year, the agency has failed to publish the required information about immigration enforcement on schedule this week. Transparency isn't what you say, it's what you do.

ICE’s biweekly detention data is the most up-to-date information the American public has about the empirical realities of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement—but for the second time this year, the agency has failed to publish the required information on schedule. As Adam Sawyer noted on Bluesky, the updated spreadsheet should have been released by the end of the day Friday to stay current, but no such release has been posted.

There are three things that I have said repeatedly about the value of this dataset and I’ll repeat all three things here in one place.

This is not a partisan issue. Whether you support Trump or oppose him, congressionally-mandated data is a fundamental part of transparency—and this is an administration that has claimed to be the “

most transparent in history.” Transparency isn’t what you say to reporters—it’s what your administration does in practice.In contrast to knee-jerk skepticism on the left, typically from people who don’t actually look carefully at this data, the Trump administration has not only

notmaliciously introduced errors into the data, but has actually (a) made far fewer errors than the Biden administration’s sloppier handling of the data and (b) provided more recent data when the data is finally released.After the Trump administration began withholding of the Office of Homeland Security Statistics’s monthly enforcement reports, this data is the

onlytimely data we have about immigration enforcement. Currently projects likeDetentionReports.comrely on this data to ensure that more Americans—regardless of political perspective—have the information they need to learn about the immigration system.

I have tremendous empathy and respect for frontline civil servants in every agency, including the people who are involved in producing and publishing this dataset. Delays may not necessarily be nefarious. That’s why I typically don’t jump on data delays. But after the significant delay with the late-January release, I am less inclined to wait 7-10 days like I did last month before alerting the public and policymakers to the issue.

To ICE: please

publish the data.To Congress: tell ICE to follow your requirement and

publish the data.To everyone else: follow me here on Substack and as soon as ICE does

publish the dataI’ll break down the key trends so you have the latest facts about immigration enforcement.,

ICE Fails Again to Publish Required Detention Data - Austin Kocher

ICE Fails Again to Publish Required Detention Data

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