ICE enforcement tactics are under renewed scrutiny after recent operations in West Virginia, as new research raises questions about the U.S. government’s portrayal of the people detained.

The Deportation Data Project said Operation Country Roads, a 15-day federal enforcement campaign, arrested immigrants under unverified suspicions of drug and child abuse crimes.

Kyle Vass, investigative reporter for the ACLU of West Virginia, said the affected families are taxpaying people who show up for work every day and are being removed from their communities.

"These people are really paying into the programs that don’t benefit them and even paying the salary of ICE agents that arrested them," Vass pointed out. "These people are paying into a system that they get nothing back from. They’re helping us by being here; they’re not here because they’re some sort of violent, terrible person."

Vass recalled one woman who was denied an opportunity to speak with her husband, an American citizen, before he was taken into custody. He accused ICE of grabbing whomever agents can and then lying about the number of arrests. The Department of Homeland Security said the Deportation Data Project’s figures are “cherry-picked” to peddle a false narrative and has questioned the report’s accuracy.

Vass described ICE’s actions as propaganda meant to anger and distract voters by creating a “boogeyman” for the government to solve. He noted his information gathering found arrest numbers were inflated from 593 to 650, and three-quarters of the people detained during the operation had no criminal record.

Overcrowding in holding facilities is also an issue. Vass stressed West Virginia officials are hesitant to address it because cities can benefit financially from detained immigrants.

“If you add up all of the days that people spent, calculated everybody, it totaled to beyond 17,000 days,” Vass reported. “At $90 a day per diem for ICE, we’re looking at the state making potentially $1.5 million off of this deal.”

Vass added judges in the Southern District of West Virginia have found enforcers repeatedly violated detainees’ rights by arresting people who should not have been jailed. In past statements, DHS has called claims of false arrest counts a “hoax” following similar accusations made against ICE agents in New Jersey.

Support for this reporting was provided by the philanthropic foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Source: Public News Service