The administration of President Donald Trump has promoted its immigration control agenda with ambitious figures on deportations and arrests, but at the same time, access to official data on immigration in the United States has become increasingly limited.
According to a report by Associated Press (AP), researchers, journalists, and organizations have warned that the government is publishing fewer verifiable statistics than previous administrations, making it difficult to assess the real impact of immigration policies.
Trump has set aggressive goals for his second term, including deporting one million people, preventing releases at the United States-Mexico border, and detaining thousands of suspected gang members.
However, several of the databases that traditionally allowed for the analysis of the implementation of these policies have either stopped updating or are experiencing delays.
Among them are reports from the National Security Statistics Office, which is responsible for publishing data on deportations, the nationalities of expelled individuals, and migration trends.
That organization, which has been tracking migration statistics since 1872, had recently started publishing monthly reports that allowed researchers to monitor the evolution of the measures almost in real time.
However, those reports have not been updated since the beginning of last year, and a notice on their website indicates that the publication is delayed while it is under review.
Migration specialists argue that the lack of that data makes it difficult to analyze how the new immigration control policies are functioning.
Research professor Austin Kocher from Syracuse University noted that these reports were the most comprehensive and reliable information on immigration law enforcement in the country.
Other data systems also experience delays. An interactive panel launched by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in December 2023 to display arrests, nationalities, and criminal backgrounds of detainees only contains information updated until January 2025.
The annual report of ICE, which is usually published in December, had also not been released until mid-March.
Other federal agencies continue to publish some of their statistics, such as the data on encounters at the border released by the Customs and Border Protection Office. However, experts note that other important indicators have stopped being updated.
The most recent figures from the State Department on visa issuance are from August, while some indicators from the Citizenship and Immigration Services have not been updated since October.
The lack of data has forced researchers and organizations to rely on partial information or figures obtained through lawsuits based on the Freedom of Information Act.
In addition, some statistics released by the government itself have raised doubts due to inconsistencies.
In a statement on January 20, the Department of Homeland Security stated that more than 675,000 people had been deported since Trump's return to the White House, noted AP.
One day later, another statement placed the number at 622,000 and, in a testimony before Congress on March 4, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, mentioned 700,000 deportations.
An analysis by AP based on data published by ICE estimated that the number of individuals expelled from the country during the first year of Trump's second term is approximately 400,000.
The Department of Homeland Security has also stated that 2.2 million people who were in the United States illegally returned to their home countries voluntarily, although it has not explained how that figure was calculated.
In the absence of systematic information, researchers and specialists in migration policy assert that it is becoming increasingly difficult to measure the true extent of migration control operations.
"We are a bit in the dark about how the implementation of immigration laws is functioning exactly at a time when it takes on new and unprecedented forms," noted Julia Gelatt from the Migration Policy Institute.
The lack of data has generated criticism even among some sectors that support stricter immigration policies, who are calling for greater transparency in the official figures.
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