According to a new rigorously validated dataset, ICE has detained at least 500 U.S. since the start of this administration — and the true number is likely many times higher. Nicole Foy, Ruth Talbot, and Cengiz Yar of ProPublica spent an hour with us talking about the database they recently published that sought to quantify these cases. They walked us through why this work is so important and what they learned, how they defined what counted as being detained, how they verified that the people in the videos and other stories were in fact US citizens, and why the dataset only scratches the surface. Nicole called it “the absolute minimum” number of citizens actually detained, arrested, or otherwise stopped and held by immigration authorities.
With advances in technology, it’s easier than ever to build online dashboards of varying quality, and more important than ever to understand what separates them from quality datasets that require committed journalism and careful attention to the ethics of documenting violent events. That’s why I think their database is one of the best examples of this kind of work in a fast-moving multimedia environment, where it’s easier to flip through emotional videos that hook us than to validate and organize what we’re looking at. Cengiz told us that “no single line here was just reliant on the visual material.” What the team has done is remarkable.
They also acknowledged the many other reporters who worked on this beyond the three of them, and the reporters who covered these stories first, including local journalists, which helps vet the information. The mix of skills on the team, from a reporter to a visuals editor to a coder, shows how this work really gets done.
A dataset like this is not just important for public understanding. As Nicole said, it is also an important tool for attorneys who are going to court. It shows that these aren’t a few one-off cases. This is a much larger pattern, and what that calls for, in my view, isn’t fixing a couple of mistakes by a couple of officers — it calls for systemic change, oversight, and accountability. Unfortunately, the agency itself is not doing this, and neither is Congress right now. So I’m glad this team stepped up. In Nicole’s words, “we’re documenting this because the government isn’t, and the government still isn’t, so here we are.”
Huge “thank you” to Nicole, Ruth, and Cengiz. Please watch or listen to the video. I think it’s really informative and a good behind-the-scenes look at how this work gets done.
Don’t forget! I’m talking with Dr. Ernesto Castañeda of American University today at 1:00 PM Eastern about a new voter poll heading into the election. You can read the findings in the CLALS report, “Where American Voters Stand on MAGA’s Immigration Policies,” which Ernesto first shared on Bluesky as a “NEW CLALS YOUGOV poll of 5 k likely voters,” and in WTOP’s coverage, “Immigration remains a key issue, but voters’ views are shifting ahead of the midterms.”
