April 16, 2019 / Modified apr 16, 2019 10:41 a.m.

Study Finds More Individuals Deported From Arizona Last Year Than Any Other State

The study by Syracuse University used the Freedom of Information Act to track data from U.S. agencies.

Kino exterior Men stand outside the Kino Border Initiative, which bears signs in Spanish signaling services for deported immigrants in Nogales, Sonora (2017).
AZPM

The data research center TRAC found that in 2018 federal immigration officials deported more individuals from Arizona than from any other U.S. state.

"Arizona was, by far, the highest." says Susan Long, one of the researchers on the project. Long is also the co-director of TRAC, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse located at Syracuse University.

"What we do is use the Freedom of Information Act to try to pry loose this internal data for government internal databases — to track what they do", says Long.

The study also revealed that the Trump administration's Secure Communities executive order that claims more undocumented immigrants from sanctuary cities are deported than from non-sanctuary cities has no basis in actual data.

"What the administration claims is simply not true. In fact the opposite is true," says Long, adding, "Our research, using Border Patrol, [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and immigration court numbers, show that you are less likely to be deported if you live in a sanctuary city," she said.

MORE: Immigration, News
By posting comments, you agree to our
AZPM encourages comments, but comments that contain profanity, unrelated information, threats, libel, defamatory statements, obscenities, pornography or that violate the law are not allowed. Comments that promote commercial products or services are not allowed. Comments in violation of this policy will be removed. Continued posting of comments that violate this policy will result in the commenter being banned from the site.

By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
The University of Arizona