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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. By the way, quick reminder that tomorrow is newsletter day. You can sign up for free for the Brian Lehrer Show newsletter if you're interested. It includes a weekly column from me. Recently, it's been a lot about the mayoral race. Haven't decided yet what I'm going to write about for tomorrow's newsletter, but it also will have a reader question for you to answer if you choose, as usual, and some other features. To sign up, just go to wnyc.org/blnewsletter. It'll come to your inbox tomorrow and every Thursday afternoon.

Now, we'll spend some time here delving into the data behind the Trump administration's mass deportation policy. A few individual stories of immigration detainees have made headlines. The personal stories are so compelling, obviously, but there's a bigger picture here that can fly below many people's radar. The administration has enforced daily arrest quotas in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), removed temporary legal status for migrants from an array of countries, people who were here in legal status. They've increased asylum denials.

Now there's news that about 58,000 people are currently being held in one of 200 ICE detention facilities across the country, 58,000 people now. There are up to 200 of these facilities, which may be the highest number ever recorded in history, that 58,000 immigrant detainees at once. That's according to Dr. Austin Kocher, research professor at Syracuse University, their Newhouse School of Public Communications there. His self-titled Substack and is dedicated to "decoding the US Immigration system with clear analysis backed by data." He joins us now with some of his findings. Dr. Kocher, thanks for doing this. Welcome to WNYC.

Dr. Austin Kocher: Thanks for having me on, Brian. Glad to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Let's look first at this figure of people currently being held in ICE detention. Just under 58,000, you say. Can you put this number into context for us? Where and when is this data coming from, and how accurate do you assess it to be?

Dr. Austin Kocher: Sure. We've been getting biweekly detention data from ICE since late 2018 as a result of a congressional mandate. This is data that Congress requires the agency to produce. Prior to 2018, we only got intermittent numbers of how many people were in detention based on FOIA requests, but now they produce this data proactively and publicly, and quite regularly. I follow this data and make sure that it's accurate and everything.

Since 2018, since they've been releasing this data, this is the highest number. It reached a previous height of around 54,000-55,000 during the first Trump administration. COVID hit, that drove detention numbers down. Numbers are back up. It may be possible that numbers were higher at some point prior to 2018 or maybe on some given day that we don't have data for, but as far as I can tell, we are in unprecedented territory.

Certainly, when you combine the enforcement efforts of ICE across the country, total number of people in detention and total detention centers used, we're definitely seeing unprecedented growth. Because I follow this particular data set very closely, I have a pretty good sense of where ICE tends to make mistakes. They do make mistakes. They published data that is inaccurate or out of date during the first Trump administration, during the Biden administration, and during this administration as well. The data that we're looking at right now, as far as I can tell, is validated and does seem to reflect an accurate picture of the massive expansion of immigration enforcement across the country.

Brian Lehrer: However, I was interested in the number that you gave in that answer. Did I hear it right? 54,000 or so during the first Trump administration might have been in immigration detention at any one time. Now you're seeing around 58,000. It's actually not that different. There wasn't all the publicity around mass deportation that there is now. Is this functionally different from Trump 1? It certainly feels like it is when we hear these stories every day, but numerically, maybe it isn't.

Dr. Austin Kocher: Even though we've just recently crept above the previous high number of 54,000-55,000, one thing to keep in mind is that that took two/two-and-a-half years to get there. We're already there in five months. I think one of the major differences is more than just the number. It's the escalation and the speed at which that escalation has taken place, as well as the fact that the guardrails are off in this administration. That's what's allowing them to do this.

I think the first Trump administration, they still had a certain amount of deference to the courts. There were still a certain number of committed and more serious career leaders at the Department of Homeland Security and in ICE, who would probably view and have left the administration and agencies and come out and made comments about their concerns about current administration's approach. I do think that we're seeing a qualitative difference. To be frank, yes, we're just barely above those old numbers. We're already five, six months in. This growth is not going to slow down. These numbers are going to climb precipitously.

Brian Lehrer: Tom Homan, the so-called Border Czar, keeps saying things like, "We're just getting started. You ain't seen nothing yet." On who these 58,000 detainees are, the promise of mass deportation was to rid the country of people who have committed serious crimes. I know they said it wasn't only going to be that. If you happen to be around one of those people when we're picking that person up and you're not in legal status, you're vulnerable, too. The centerpiece of it, certainly during the campaign, was to rid the country of people who have committed serious crimes. Does your data set tell you anything about the criminal status of those currently in ICE custody?

Dr. Austin Kocher: Absolutely. We can answer this question pretty definitively by looking at data on ICE arrests that we have. Detailed data on ICE arrests that has been published by the Deportation Data Project from Berkeley, as well as the detention data set that I reported on, that was just updated earlier this week. There has been growth across the board in terms of who's in detention. ICE classifies people in detention and people they arrest, either by people who have had a criminal conviction on their record, people with pending criminal charges, and people with no criminal record of any kind, but who may still be deportable due to civil immigration violations.

I just want to note that both those charges and convictions, that includes such a wide variety of people. The kind of categories as a social scientist, there's so much difference within them. There's people who maybe they do have serious violent offenses, either as a charge or as a conviction. There's also people with nothing more than a shoplifting charge or another nonviolent offense of some kind. There's a lot of variation in there.

All that being said, the group that has grown the quickest and the most is that third group of people with no criminal histories. Also, we live in the United States. You're innocent until proven guilty. That category of pending criminal charges is also a category that I think a lot of people would say those are not people with convictions to begin with, even if they have been charged with a minor crime of some kind.

Overall, what we're seeing is the growth in detention is being driven primarily by people with no criminal histories, not by people with criminal convictions. Again, even those with criminal convictions, there's no evidence to support the idea that they are all violent criminals. Some percent may be, and that's kind of a different question. It's certainly not that group that's driving the growth in detention primarily.

The same is true for arrests, too. We've seen there's been a massive spike in arrests going from May into June. Almost all of that growth has come from ICE arresting people with no criminal charges or convictions, primarily just those civil people with civil immigration violations. Not exactly what the administration is claiming.

Brian Lehrer: In a second, I want to ask you to get more into those arrest numbers, and particularly of people with no violations other than their legal status in the country. Listeners, as we go through these numbers that he's compiling, we also invite your stories. 212-433-WNYC. How has the mass deportation agenda impacted your life, your family, your community, your workplace? Especially to the point that Dr. Kocher was just making, if you or anyone you know has been picked up for immigration detention without any criminal history, even criminal charge, tell us the story. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Call or text.

Even beyond that, listeners, to things we've been reporting on the station about community life, have you noticed a silence in the streets of your immigrant enclave neighborhood that was once bustling with energy, or maybe you yourself are one of those people who's now kind of staying home out of fear that you might be picked up for not much. Is your church seeing a drop in attendees? Reverends, call us up. Now that people are staying out of the public eye, has ICE shown up to your building, your business, your street corner?

Are you or members of your family affected by changes to TPS that makes you vulnerable, Temporary Protected Status, people who are here legally because of horrific conditions in your country of origin, whatever that country is, Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, all recently losing TPS status and making you vulnerable to deportation just on that basis. If you have sensitive information you want to share, you can always call us anonymously. That's okay. Call or text and help us put some humanity on the bones of these numbers from Dr. Kocher's studies. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Call or text.

Dr. Kocher, can you explain the Trump administration's implementation of arrest quotas? We heard about this initially at the start of the term, but that number has fluctuated over these past six months, and also the stories of how that works.

Dr. Austin Kocher: Sure. Absolutely. The quotas that the Trump administration has been setting for ICE agents is a daily quota. They're setting expectations about how many arrests ICE should do. They have the data to track this. Back in January, early February, they set that quota to between 1,000 and 1,500, basically. Then, more recently, last month, they increased that quota to 3,000. Now, what's really interesting about the quota is they've never been able to meet the quota or really even come close to it on a consistent basis so far during the Trump administration. Again, we know this from the detailed arrest data that the Deportation Data Project published.

When we look at that data, what we see is that, yes, there has been an increase in arrests by ICE. They never came close to staying above 1,000 per day, certainly not close to 1,500 per day. By May, beginning of June, it wasn't until then that they even had two days in a row that they crossed the 1,000 arrest threshold. By then, they had already moved the needle up to 3,000, which again, through the data that we have in June, they weren't anywhere close to.

The question is, how do we think about the quotas? We could say, well, ICE has been unable to meet the quotas because they don't have enough funding or they are not putting enough effort into it. I think the reality is that the quotas are much more of a political tool than they are a meaningful operational expectation set for ICE officers as a programmatic or project-based goal. I think the idea that ICE is never able to do enough, that they never have enough resources, that they can never meet their quotas gives the impression of an ongoing "crisis" that lends legitimacy and justification, at least to the White House's position that they need, the $170 billion for DHS or $45 billion for ICE, to dramatically expand all of their enforcement efforts. I view the quotas as a serious concern, but less connected to the reality of enforcement and more connected to the politics of the messaging.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hear a caller's story. Lisa in the Bronx. You're on WNYC. Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi, good morning, first time caller, longtime listener. I am so happy to talk to you guys. I work in healthcare, full disclosure, but semi-disclosure because we pay a caregiver. She's Venezuelan. She had protected status. She's here with her husband, her son who works for Amazon, her daughter in high school. They've been here five years. She's in the process of applying for citizenship, she's been a godsend. My dad has Alzheimer's, dementia. I can't express to you how much we value her. She's terrified of going to her appointments. She's been keeping them, but as a family, they go, and they never know if they're going to leave the place that they go to. It's really scary.

These are jobs that people here don't want to take. No one wants to take care of the elderly. No one wants to work in nursing homes. No one wants to work in restaurants, ecept immigrants who literally bust their hump day in and day out in this city. They're everywhere. They run our city.

Brian Lehrer: Did your aide just lose her temporary protected status on the basis of being under [unintelligible 00:14:40] Venezuela?

Lisa: Yes, it's been extended, but I think it's up either in August or September. She gets regular updates on this. It's that tackle thing. They take it away, they give it back. They take it away, they give it back. I believe they just removed it from Hondurans and Haitians. It's living under a stress. No one should be terrified of this. They have no criminal record. They haven't done anything wrong. They walked here through all of Mexico. I really can't begin to imagine what they went through. It's heartbreaking.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, thank you for your call. Thank you for sharing that story, which humanizes some of the data. Professor Kocher, I don't know if you're in a position as a data analyst on immigration detention to give any advice to Lisa's employee, should she show up for her routine check-in if her TPS expires, or is she at risk of being snatched? Of course, if you don't show up, then you're at risk of being snatched for failing to keep your appointment, but too many people are in that kind of duality now.

Dr. Austin Kocher: Absolutely. Well, I definitely can't give legal advice, and I'm not an attorney. I can say that this story is really important because it shows, really, how this idea of immigration enforcement isn't just about immigrants, it's about all of us. If the healthcare workers that we have, restaurant workers that we have, and certainly in this caller's situation, someone who's providing crucial support to family members, if that person is forced to leave the country or is detained, American citizens, our family members, will suffer. I always like to say that immigration is not just about immigrants, it's about all of us. This story really illustrates that. I'd also just add that the vulnerability that this caller has helped us to understand is so important.

I've been inside detention facilities. I've interviewed and worked with a lot of immigrants who are facing deportation. I can say that the fear right now and the anxiety right now about what could happen at any moment, it certainly feels like it's a high in my lifetime or my career. I really hope that that person who's become part of your family, to the caller, finds a way to stay here and stay in our communities. I also lament the anxiety and the fear that I'm sure they experience trying to follow the law and do things the right way.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a listener taking me up on the invitation to call anonymously if they think that's the safest. Hi, you're on WNYC from Montclair. Hi.

Anonymous Caller 1: Hi, Brian, how you doing? Thank you so much for taking my call. I love your show. I've been listening to your show for several years. I'm an immigrant from one of the countries in Africa and I've lived here for eight years. Unfortunately, Brian, I would love to say that it's not the America we thought that we used to love to be in, to live in freely, to live in without any issues. We are good people. Some of us are very good people. I know neighbors who are really good people. Unfortunately, the IRIS that are going on, like you said, these are not criminals that are being arrested.

A friend of mine in Massachusetts was telling me the other day her wife was naturalized, she's a citizen. She had to go out with her baby so that if they see her with a baby, maybe they would sympathize with her, but why? She has a passport. She's an American. Because of what's going on, there's a lot of panic. We are not comfortable, our jobs right now. We don't know what's going to happen next time. If it's about criminals, let it be about criminals. Some of these people are hard-working people.

Unfortunately, Brian, some people even voted for the government. Some people. But their families have been affected. How is that? I don't understand. Their families have been affected, but they voted for the government. It's crazy. There's a lot of panic going on. Business is not as usual as it used to be before. Thank you so much, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much for your anonymous and troubling call. I'm just curious, Dr. Kocher, again, I realize you're a college professor and a data researcher, but when you hear a story like that, what are you sitting there thinking at your end of the line now?

Dr. Austin Kocher: One of the things that I've decided to do with my career and the research that I have done and continue to do is try to inject some common sense and some data and facts into the public discourse. That caller is absolutely right, President Trump won the last election quite handily, and he won it with the support of a lot of immigrants, and a lot of people whose family members are immigrants and are now being affected. Unfortunately, one of the talking points that's been convincing to a lot of people is the idea that the administration is going to go after criminals and terrorists.

I wrote back in January on my Substack, I said, "Look, I've been studying this for years. This is not a political position. This is just the data. If the Trump administration is going to implement a mass deportation program, there's no way for them to do it and drive up deportation numbers without also driving up the arrest, detention, and deportation of people with no criminal history. This sociological fact is immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, commitment crimes and violent crimes at lower rates than US Citizens."

There's just not enough immigrants with serious criminal histories to implement mass deportation. They have to go after everyone. I think a lot of people, unfortunately, bought the idea that they would only go after criminals, but the good people who are working here would be allowed to stay. That's just not the case, unfortunately.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take one more anonymous caller before we run out of time, this time from Astoria, Queens. Hi, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Anonymous Caller 2: Oh, hi, Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call. This is kind of a tear-jerker, but my cousin's husband has recently, finally, been given his Green Card interview. It's been like six or seven years that he's been waiting for it. He's not from any country with a protected status or anything that's changed. He was a dreamer, and his parents brought him here. Kind of a dramatic story, but he didn't have a choice. They applied for asylum earlier, maybe in the [unintelligible 00:21:41] then were denied, so he was supposed to leave and didn't. Now that he's married, they've applied again. He finally has his Green Card interview. It came the day after we just found out that his three-year-old niece needs brain surgery.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, my goodness.

Anonymous Caller 2: It's like, what are the chances? We all know that there's a risk of just showing up to these appointments. You can't not show up if you want your Green Card. What's really going to happen? I don't know what to think, what the percentage chance is he'll actually just get his Green Card and be done, or will be forced as an extended family to handle this enormous stress of this family that now has lost a caregiver and a parent, of course, who they love, but also a provider. It's just going to be an enormous strain. It's already an enormous strain, just the waiting for everyone. It's not just for this family. The way it's affecting American families, it's just too much. We have too much other stuff going on. We don't have time for all of this stress. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your story. That's a heartbreaking story. Oh, my goodness. With the child who needs brain surgery, and there's the parent who may have been out of status for a while at some point in the past, but now is going through the Green Card application process, and I guess has an appointment relevant to that coming up. Again, I don't think we can answer the question. She kind of did. She says, "They kind of got to go through with the appointment," but in some of these cases, that's the circumstance when people are being detained.

Dr. Austin Kocher: Yes, it's certainly happening. USCIS is the agency that handles naturalization applications and many of these immigration statuses. In the past, they've been mostly a bureaucratic agency. Unfortunately, under this administration, they are increasingly, I would say, weaponizing that bureaucratic agency to act like an enforcement agency. There's certainly more risk than there's been in the past. What I would say is we still have a process. If you have an interview and you have paperwork in, I always recommend that people talk to an immigration attorney if they can afford one and if they can find one, because those are the professionals who are going to be able to give you the best advice based on your case and based on your region of the country. Find someone in New York if you can.

The truth is, people are trying to do things the right way. Some of them are still being punished for it. No one should be afraid of going into an interview to do things the right way and to follow the laws and policies of the country. It's unfortunate. I think, in my view, it's over the line in terms of the politicization of our immigration system to weaponize those agencies, to create fear and confusion among people who are really just trying to stay in the community. The caller is so right, there's so much going on in that family. The last thing they need is someone in detention or being afraid to go into a government office. It's just a real shame. We're at a very tragic and, in my view, dark moment in our immigration history right now.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing before you go, and in your wheelhouse of following the data and crunching the numbers, there was this number that's been out there for a while of the border czar, Tom Homan, saying that there was a quota being implemented or striven for of 3,000 detentions a day. Now we're seeing in the New York Post, it says, "Homan, on Monday, called for taking at least 7,000 off the streets per day."

Then we have this text from a listener who writes, "With massive increases, is there an increase in immigration judges? Seems like a terrible bottleneck if the judges aren't increased in proportion to ICE." What do you think about the bottleneck question and what's happening in the courts? Or are they just foregoing due process in a large scale way, and just sending people out of the country? We've heard some of the cases, like Abrego Garcia, where there's a big fight over due process. Sometimes, due process wins, even at the Supreme Court. Then maybe not. 7,000 a day. A last thought on either of those things.

Dr. Austin Kocher: 7,000 a day is an absurd number under current circumstances. Again, that just speaks to my earlier point about those quotas being more about political theater than about operational reality. I wouldn't take 7,000 to be very serious right now, other than it illustrates Thomas Homan's drive to do as much damage as he can to immigrants in the country. When it comes to the immigration court process and immigration judges, in fact, this administration has been firing judges and terminating recent hires, as well as driving people either into retirement or just driving people to quit.

We've actually seen a lot of attrition among the immigration judges in the country, which is the opposite of what you think the administration would be doing if they're trying to close out a lot of cases. Instead of doing it the right way, as you point out, or as you suggested, it is the reality that the administration is undermining due process. People are showing up for their court hearings only to have the ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney move to just close the case completely. Then those individuals just get arrested and put in detention immediately.

I think there's a real effort in the Trump administration, similarly to what we've seen Donald Trump himself do in the federal courts. He attacks federal judges, he undermines the rule of law, he undermines the legitimacy and authority of the federal courts and the Supreme Court when it doesn't go his way. The administration takes the same approach to the immigration court system. They are doing everything they can to avoid going in front of a judge and trying to deport people using any other means necessary because they don't want to have to be in a court of law and be held to any standard. Even though the immigration court standard is not particularly rigorous, it's certainly not as rigorous as the federal courts, but they would prefer to find some way to even get around the immigration courts altogether. That is, unfortunately, what we're seeing.

Brian Lehrer: Austin Kocher, research professor at Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School of Public Communications. He's got a Substack on all these things. Just called Austin Kocher. That's K-O-C-H-E-R, focuses on immigration data news. Thank you for sharing some of it with us.

Dr. Austin Kocher: Thanks for having me.

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