Immigration Detention at the Intersection of Police Surveillance and Economic Capacity

Introduction:

County-level law enforcement agencies (LEAs) are integral to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) ability to identify, arrest, and detain migrants before transfer to federal immigration custody. Research has overwhelmingly focused on the political motivations for such federal-local collaboration, ignoring the economic and technological infrastructure amplifying LEAs’ engagement in racialized policing and surveillance practices that target Latinx migrant communities. Thus, this paper examines the relationship between county political majority, LEAs’ budget, and LEAs’ surveillance capacity with the number of migrants held for ICE in 2016.

Methods:

County-level data (N=433) for 2016 are from Bureau of Justice Statistics, Vera Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Labor Statistics, ICE, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and CQ Press. Data were analyzed with negative binomial regression models. The dependent variable was the number of migrants detained for ICE in each county. Independent variables included LEA budget (classified as high, medium, and low), county political majority in the 2016 presidential election, and surveillance capacity (the count of regularly used surveillance technologies, such as facial recognition, license plate readers, gunshot detection, and in-car access to federal biometrics databases). Controls included Latinx population percentage, county unemployment, violent crime-rate, receipt of federal LEA grants, presence of a county sanctuary policy, and urbanicity.

Results:

Agencies with medium (IRR=2.66, SE=.50, p=.049) and high budgets (IRR=3.60, SE=.62, p=.039) held significantly more migrants for ICE in 2016 than those with low budgets. LEAs’ surveillance capacity was positively associated with the number of migrants held for ICE (IRR=1.32, SE=.06, p<.001). Interactions between surveillance capacity and medium (IRR=1.36, SE=.14, p=.025) and high (IRR=1.53, SE=.15, p=.005) budgets were significant. At low levels of surveillance capacity, agencies held similar numbers of migrants for ICE regardless of budget. However, as surveillance capacity increased, the effect of agency budget on immigration detention became more pronounced. County political majority, alone, was not significantly related to the number of migrants held for ICE (IRR=.72, SE=.37, p=.36), but the interaction between political majority and surveillance capacity was significant (IRR=-.48, SE=.18, p=.007). While Democrat and Republican majority counties with low levels of surveillance capacity did not significantly differ in detention rates, Democrat majority counties with greater surveillance capacity had significantly higher rates of immigration detention than Republican majority counties with the same level of surveillance capacity.

Conclusions and Implications:

Agency’s financial and surveillance capacity may offer critical insight to the patterns of immigration detention in the United States, but limited research has explored the nuances of these relationships. LEAs’ surveillance capacity may moderate the relationship between agency budget and immigration detention, while the relationship between county political majorities and immigration detention may depend on LEAs’ surveillance capacity. When measured alone, there were no significant differences in detention rates between Democrat and Republican majority counties. By investigating these relationships, this paper offers a novel contribution, interrogating the complex interplay between police surveillance, LEAs’ financial capacity, and federal-local immigration enforcement collaboration. Future research should carefully consider more robust and comprehensive measures of LEA capacity, including surveillance capacity.