Austin Kocher, an immigration researcher, warns that presenting arrest quotas without proper context can mislead the public regarding immigration enforcement. He emphasizes that administrative arrests, indicated by specific data, represent only a fraction of ICE's overall activities. Misinterpretation of these numbers can amplify governmental narratives. Kocher urges journalists to exercise caution and humility when discussing immigration statistics, noting that an arrest entails different categories and does not encapsulate the full scope of ICE's law enforcement operations, particularly distinguishing between civil and criminal violations.
"When we're looking at data on arrests, we have to remember that an arrest is not just an arrest. There's a bunch of different kinds of arrests. The administrative arrest data only includes arrests from enforcement removal operations, which is one unit within ICE."
"Immigration data rarely is what you think it is. There's a lot of nuance that gets lost when we don’t have the right context. It’s important to recognize the limitations of the numbers we’re examining."
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