Well, to no one’s surprise, our government has screwed up once again. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently shocked the public by informing Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) that it had “no records” of the 377,980 individuals monitored by its “Alternatives to Detention” (ATD) program used to electronically track illegal immigrants released into the country from the start of fiscal year 2019. This was in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by TRAC for data on those in ATD custody until August 2022.

Did you get that? They effectively lost nearly 400,000 illegal immigrants in our country!

ICE began their ATD program in 2004 to monitor illegal migrants released into the country using ankle monitors, GPS tracking and cellphones. Due to limited detention space, ICE relies heavily on this program to keep track of those awaiting lengthy delays in immigration courts.

However, TRAC has previously expressed its concern over inaccurate ATD data that ICE has been releasing publicly. The Daily Caller reported last year on errors and miscalculations found in ICE’s reports regarding those not tracked with any technology as well as those monitored by GPS tracking. The agency apologized for this issue, but TRAC remains wary given that ICE has yet to correct other inconsistencies found since then, such as incorrectly releasing data from May 2021 instead of September 2022.

As such, TRAC Assistant Professor Austin Kocher called on ICE to be more transparent and accountable with the information they release: “The American public deserves to have accurate data about the ATD program…The agency really needs to come clean.” Errors made by ICE can cause serious confusion and complications within our country’s legal system when it comes to handling matters related to immigration cases — something that could be avoided if we had accurate data about their Alternatives to Detention program.