Customs Enforcement Research Articles

“How Our Heritage is Looted”: Legal Meaning-Making, Cultural Property, and Customs Enforcement in Nigeria, 1938–79

Abstract This article sets out to explain why Nigeria was unable to prevent the loss of heritage objects in the 1960s and 1970s. Obvious answers to this question would include the limited enforcement capacity of the African state and the complacency of European and North American art dealers. “How Our Heritage Is Looted” argues, however, that a colonial legal category, namely “antiquity,” played a key role in creating an ineffective enforcement regime for cultural property theft. The mismatch between the ordinary meaning of the term “antiquity,” denoting a remnant of an ancient civilization, and the kinds of modern crafts that the state wanted to protect ultimately resulted in the inability of Nigeria’s colonial preservation statute to convey clear rules to customs officers and museum curators about what exporters could take out of the country. Nigeria’s heritage law thus constituted a project of legal meaning-making whose failure facilitated illicit commerce.

Detainer Requests Issued by ICE and Fair/Poor Self-Rated Health among Latines in the U.S., 2017–2020

AbstractU.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issues detainer requests to local law enforcement agencies to hold detainees suspected of being undocumented immigrants until they can be transferred into ICE custody. We examined the association between area-level detainer requests and self-rated health among Latine adults. We linked health data from Latine adults included in the 2017–2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (n = 69,386) to detainer requests per 1,000 non-citizens in core-based statistical areas, (n = 152 across 49 states). We fit logistic regression models of self-rated fair/poor health on detainer requests, adjusted for individual- and area-level confounders. In adjusted analyses, we found that Latine adults living in areas with the highest quartile of requests had 24% higher odds of fair/poor health (OR 1.24, 95% CI = 1.05,1.47) relative to those in the lowest quartile. Local law enforcement agencies should limit cooperation with federal immigrant agencies to protect the health of Latine communities.

Likelihood of COVID-19 Outbreaks in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Centers, 2020‒2021.

Objectives. To determine facility-level factors associated with COVID-19 outbreaks in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. Methods. We obtained COVID-19 case counts at 88 ICE detention facilities from May 6, 2020, through June 21, 2021, from the COVID Prison Project. We obtained information about facility population size, facility type (dedicated to immigrants or mixed with other incarcerated populations), and facility operator (public vs private contractor) from third-party sources. We defined the threshold for a COVID-19 outbreak as a cumulative 3-week incidence of 10% or more of the detained population. Results. Sixty-three facilities (72%) had at least 1 outbreak. Facilities with any outbreak were significantly more likely to be privately operated (P < .001), to have larger populations (113 vs 37; P = .002), and to have greater changes in their population size over the study period (‒56% vs -26%; P < .001). Conclusions. Several facility-level factors were associated with the occurrence of COVID-19 outbreaks in ICE facilities. Public Health Implications. Structural and organizational factors that promote respiratory infection spread in ICE facilities must be addressed to protect detainee health. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(9):909-912. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307704).

ICE Detainer Requests Were Associated With Lower Medicaid And SNAP Enrollment Among Eligible Adults, 2011-19.

Legislative policies that criminalize immigrants have a "chilling effect" on public program participation among eligible immigrants. However, little is known about the effect of local enforcement actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In this study, we linked county-level data on the number of detainer requests (or immigration holds) issued by ICE to individual-level data from the 2011, 2016, and 2019 American Community Surveys. We fit adjusted logistic regression models to assess the association between detainer requests and enrollment in Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) among those likely eligible for each program in US-born versus immigrant households. A higher volume of detainer requests was associated with lower enrollment in both Medicaid and SNAP, particularly among adults in households with at least one immigrant relative to US-born households. We observed the most pronounced effects in 2011 and 2019.

Child Migrants in Family Detention in the US: Addressing Fragmented Care.

Migrant children in family detention facilities often experience frequent relocations and prolonged stays in precarious living conditions. This frequent relocation results in fragmentation of necessary medical care, leading to delays and inadequate medical care. We aim to highlight the critical need for comprehensive medical documentation in immigration detention facilities, a fragmented health care system and potential harm to these children without appropriate medical documentation. We conducted a retrospective review of 165 medical records from children detained at the Karnes County Family Residential Center between June 2018 and October 2020 to evaluate the adequacy of pediatric medical documentation in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) family detention facility. Specific areas of interest included acute care, nutrition, immunization, developmental screening, and tuberculosis screening. Simple descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Only 25% of 418 acute medical care visits included specific diagnoses. There was no documentation regarding follow-up recommendations upon release. 97% of children had a chest X-ray completed for tuberculosis screening, however no follow-up recommendations were documented for those with granulomas. Vaccination histories were inconsistently documented. No nutritional categorizations were completed despite 16% of children being at risk for malnutrition or already malnourished. Our findings revealed significant gaps in documentation, particularly in medical decision-making and clinical reasoning. In a fragmented medical system, inadequate documentation can result in avoidable errors in diagnosis and management. Improving documentation practices is crucial to ensure that all children, regardless of immigration status, receive quality healthcare aligned with national and international standards.

Electronic Surveillance in Immigration Court: Evidence from the CalGang Database

Through a mixed-methods approach that draws on over 4000 pages of organizational documents and two quantitative data sets from federal and state entities, the authors ask, has the growth of electronic surveillance by local criminal justice agencies, with corresponding database interoperability and information sharing, changed how federal agencies—specifically immigration agencies—operate? We focus on the CalGang Database, California’s statewide gang intelligence database, to document how, since its inception in 1998, CalGang has grown both in the number of individuals under surveillance and the number of what we call adjacent users, which we define as people who can access CalGang data but were not initially intended as users and who, in pre-digital surveillance eras, would have a much more difficult time obtaining the information. In this paper we focus specifically on adjacent users in the immigration system who determine the detention and deportation of noncitizens by leveraging an information sharing agreement that gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to Calgang between January 2006 and October 2016. Using a two-way “difference in differences” approach, we estimate the impact of CalGang interoperability on federal adjacent users by comparing outcomes across immigration cases that began before or after the data sharing agreement ended. Our qualitative and quantitative analyses both demonstrate that immigration adjudicators’ access to local electronic surveillance information is associated with an increase in the number of immigrants facing criminal immigration charges that do not necessarily require a formal criminal conviction in state court, and that deportation rates are higher when ICE has access to local electronic surveillance.

County Sheriffs and Immigration and Customs Enforcement: The Will of the People or a Lack of Accountability?

County sheriffs hold a great deal of discretionary power at the county level; however, little is known about the decision-making of sheriffs. One key role they hold is overseeing county jails. In this role, county sheriffs choose how often to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they make a detainer request of the county. This study investigates the factors influencing sheriffs’ decision making, specifically whether sheriffs make discretionary decisions based on the will of the people. Using ICE data about cooperation with county jails, and Cooperative Congregational Election Study (CCES) data, we assess if sheriff cooperation with ICE is politically motivated, in congruence with preferences of the voters countywide, or are other factors potentially influencing sheriffs. We find that sheriffs’ decision to cooperate with ICE is influenced by the demographics and economy of their county rather than their own political affiliation or their county’s ideological stance on immigration.

Few Prison Systems Release Individual Death Data: Death in Custody Reporting Act Completeness, Speed, and Compliance.

The United States has one of the largest incarcerated populations per capita. Prisons are dangerous environments, with high in-prison and postrelease mortality. The Death in Custody Reporting Acts (DCRAs) of 2000 and 2013 require deaths of people in correctional custody or caused by law enforcement to be reported to the Bureau of Justice Assistance. These deaths must be reported within 3 months of the death and include 10 required fields (eg, age, cause of death). There is no public reporting requirement. Our Third City Mortality project tracks near-real-time data about individual deaths released publicly and prison system metadata, including data completeness and release speed, across (N = 54) US state, federal (N = 2; Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement), Washington, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico prison systems. Twenty-one (38%) systems release no individual death data; 13 systems release incomplete data slower than 1 year; 19 release timely, but incomplete, death data; and only one system (Iowa) releases complete and timely data. Incomplete, untimely, public prison mortality data limit protective community responses and epidemiology.

Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric and ICE Reporting Interest: Evidence from a Large-Scale Study of Web Search Data

Abstract This paper studies whether media cues can motivate interest in reporting suspected unauthorized immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Using web search data and automated content analysis of cable news transcripts, we examine the role of media coverage on searches for how to report immigrants to ICE and searches about immigrant crime and welfare dependency. We find significant and persistent increases in news segments on crime by after Trump's inauguration, accompanied by a sharp increase in searches for how to report immigrants. We find a strong association between daily reporting searches and immigration and crime coverage. Using searches during broadcasts of presidential speeches, we isolate the specific effect of anti-immigrant media coverage on searches for how to report immigrants to ICE. The findings indicate that the media's choices regarding the coverage of immigrants can have a strong impact on the public's interest in behaviour that directly harms immigrants.

Deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention: A Fiscal Year (FY) 2021-2023 update.

This study describes the deaths of individuals in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention between FY2021-2023, updating a report from FY2018-2020, which identified an increased death rate amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Data was extracted from death reports published online by ICE. Causes of deaths were recorded, and death rates per 100,000 admissions were calculated using population statistics reported by ICE. Reports of individuals released from ICE custody just prior to death were also identified and described. There were 12 deaths reported from FY2021-2023, compared to 38 deaths from FY2018-2020. The death rate per 100,000 admissions in ICE detention was 3.251 in FY2021, 0.939 in FY2022, and 1.457 in FY2023, compared with a pandemic-era high of 10.833 in FY2020. Suicide caused 1 of 12 (8.3%) deaths in FY2021-2023 compared with 9 of 38 (23.7%) deaths in FY2018-2020. COVID-19 was contributory in 3 of 11 (25%) medical deaths in FY2021-2023, compared with 8 of 11 (72.7%) in the COVID-era months of FY2020 (p = 0.030). Overall, 4 of 11 (36.3%) medical deaths in FY2021-2023 resulted from cardiac arrest in detention facilities, compared with 6 of 29 (20.3%) in FY2018-2020. Three deaths of hospitalized individuals released from ICE custody with grave prognoses were identified. The death rate among individuals in ICE custody decreased in FY2021-2023, which may be explained in part by the release of vulnerable individuals following recent federal legal determinations (e.g., Fraihat v. ICE). Identification of medically complex individuals released from ICE custody just prior to death and not reported by ICE indicates that reported deaths underestimate total deaths associated with ICE detention. Attentive monitoring of mortality outcomes following release from ICE custody is warranted.

Emergency Medical Responses at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Centers in California

Knowledge of medical care in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers is limited. Reviews show high rates of preventable deaths while in detention due to substandard medical care within detention centers. To describe characteristics of medical emergencies at ICE detention centers in California. This cross-sectional study analyzed emergency medical services (EMS)-reported medical emergencies activated through 911 from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2022, at 3 of the 5 ICE detention centers in California: Adelanto ICE Processing Center, Imperial Regional Detention Facility, and Otay Mesa Detention Center. Medical services requiring 911 activation. Data included the number of EMS-reported medical emergencies; ICE-reported medical emergencies; patient age and sex; and medical data in the EMS report, including primary symptom, EMS provider (emergency medical technician or paramedic) impression, vital signs, and interventions performed, using descriptive statistics. In this analysis of 3 detention centers with a mean daily census of 775 (range, 504-1001) individuals per center, there was a median of 68 (IQR, 10-88) EMS-reported emergencies per center per year for a total of 1224 emergencies. The EMS-reported emergencies involved 881 males (72%) and 338 females (28%) with a median age of 39.0 (IQR 30.0-49.0) years. The ratios of female-to-male EMS-reported emergencies were 0.51 (95% CI, 0.31-0.87) at Adelanto, 0.86 (95% CI, 0.31-2.43) at Imperial, and 1.60 (95% CI, 1.40-1.83) at Otay Mesa. Pregnancy-related emergencies accounted for 12.4% (42 of 338) of emergencies in females. A total of 357 individuals (29.2%) had at least 1 abnormal vital sign during their EMS encounter. Psychiatric emergencies comprised 48 EMS responses (3.9%), despite higher rates of ICE-reported psychiatric-related complaints. The median number of monthly EMS-reported emergencies across all 3 centers was 3 (IQR, 0-9) vs 4 ICE-reported emergencies (IQR, 1-15). In this study of medical emergencies at 3 of 5 ICE detention facilities in California, there were discrepancies in EMS vs ICE reported emergencies. The data suggested that vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women, had an increased number of medical emergencies, while individuals with psychiatric emergencies accounted for fewer reported emergencies. Based on these findings, emergency medical care provision in ICE detention centers requires increased transparency to ensure appropriate delivery of care.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Raids the Pillar of a Community: Student Achievement, Absenteeism, and Mobility Following a Large Worksite Enforcement Operation in North Texas

The scale and violence of workplace raids distinguish them from other interior enforcement actions, and they warrant careful scrutiny given their power to produce serious immediate and long-term consequences for entire communities with a single act. In this paper, we examine the short- and longer-run impacts of exposure to one large-scale workplace raid that occurred in Sumner, Texas, in August of 2018 on students’ academic and behavioral outcomes. We analyze student absenteeism, academic performance, and school mobility from the 2011–2012 to the 2021–2022 school year, which includes the period prior to and after the Load Trail raid. Our results indicate that there were large and direct consequences associated with the raid for Latinx and English learner students attending schools in four affected counties. In particular, student absenteeism increased markedly following the raid, reading and math test scores declined, and there were sharp increases in the number of students leaving their school districts. This study contributes to the growing body of evidence documenting how acts of community violence such as large-scale workplace raids can corrode institutional trust and severely impact the well-being of immigrants’, their children, and their communities.

2345. Factors associated with COVID-19 vaccination refusal among U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees

Abstract Background COVID-19 has disproportionately affected migrant detainees, leading to SARS-CoV-2 test positivity rates exceeding 50% among migrants in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainment facilities. The federal government started vaccinating migrants in detention centers in January 2021 for SARS-CoV-2, but little data on vaccine uptake is available. We sought to identify ICE facility characteristics and particular vaccines associated with vaccination refusal in migrant detention centers. Methods As result of Freedom of Information Act request, we acquired a comprehensive dataset of SARS-CoV-2 immunization efforts across ICE facilities from January, 2021 to July, 2022. Data included number of vaccines offered and refused, brand of vaccine (Janssen, Moderna, or Pfizer), vaccination date, detention facility name, and whether ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC) staffed the vaccine delivery. We incorporated data from ICE website on each detention center’s ownership, management of operations, detainee capacity, and COVID-19 burden (as of January 11th, 2021). Descriptive statistics, chi-square, Welch’s ANOVA, and multivariate logistic regression were performed. Results Of 129,046 vaccines offered, 65,015 (50.4%) were refused across 103 detention centers across 29 states on 506 vaccination dates. Factors associated with higher refusal included facilities not operated by IHSC (p&amp;lt; 0.001), local government operation (p=0.03), private operations (p=0.02), and vaccinations during the 2nd (p&amp;lt; 0.001) and 3rd quarters (p&amp;lt; 0.001) of 2022. Factors associated with lower refusal included ownership by local or state government, other public association, or private company; combination private/public operations; any COVID-19 death within ICE facility; and vaccination with Moderna and Pfizer (all p&amp;lt; 0.005). Figure 1. Numbers of SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations administered (blue) and vaccine refusals (orange) in United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. Conclusion Half of ICE detainees refused vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. Refusal rates were lower among vaccination campaigns utilizing mRNA vaccines and among facilities with documented COVID-19 death. Addressing refusal rates may involve detainee education on the efficacy and safety of different SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures

The Impact of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Surveillance Technology on the Well-being of the Children of Immigrants

While existing scholarship examines how Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) electronic monitors (EMs) harm immigrants, less is known about the effects of these surveillance technologies on their children. Based on interviews and ethnographic observations with 39 Latin American immigrant parents monitored via EM between 2015 and 2018 in Los Angeles, California, this study asks: How do ICE’s EMs operate as surveillance tools that spill over to impact parent–child relationships and children’s well-being as their parent’s experience criminalization, punishment, and exclusion? The findings demonstrate that this supposedly “humane” alternative to detention and deportation is responsible for distinct childhood distress. Specifically, EMs impact children’s well-being in two ways: by producing fear that parents will be apprehended and deported and by functioning as visual stigmas that signal criminality and engender shame and anger. EMs also deteriorate the quality of children’s relationships in two ways: by inflicting stress and fear upon parents and by contracting children’s social networks because parents shackled to EMs often become a liability to co-ethnic community members.

Traveling technology and perverted logics: conceptualizing Palantir’s expansion into health as sphere transgression

ABSTRACT This paper contains a normative interpretation and critique of Palantir’s expansion into the health domain by using the conceptual lens of ‘sphere transgressions’. The technology company, known for its activities in the sphere of security, expanded into the health domain during the pandemic, providing software to monitor the spread of Covid-19. In 2019 Palantir was severely criticized by human rights organizations for its role in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Trump administration. Activists and politicians worry about Palantir’s move into health. However, critique is often limited to data protection. These concerns fail to grasp the risks and harms of this expansion. In this paper, I explore the risks of Palantir’s expansion into the health sphere using Sharon’s sphere transgressions framework as a conceptual lens and critical tool to understand and judge this move. We should anticipate the risks of no public returns, dominance, and new dependencies. While this might be true for many Big Tech actors, I add that Palantir’s expansion might be particularly pernicious. Palantir’s history reveals the perversion of logics under exclusionary politics in the sphere of security. At the very least, this warrants special vigilance when importing their technologies into the sphere of health. I conclude that the sphere transgressions framework reveals risks beyond data protection regarding Palantir’s expansion into the health domain.

EU Customs Reform: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters and Towards Sanctions Harmonization?

This article begins by examining the crisis management system implemented through the EU Customs Reform. It specifically delves into the factors that prompted the Commission to create this mechanism. The paper then scrutinizes the system from both a legal and practical standpoint, assessing its potential to enable a unified response from the Customs Union when addressing the challenges identified by the proposal. Furthermore, the article discusses the Commission's renewed effort to harmonize customs enforcement within the EU. It investigates the reasons behind this proposal and subsequently evaluates the suggested provisions and their potential impacts, before ending the article with a conclusion. EU Customs Reform, criminal and non-criminal sanctions, harmonization, enforcement, legal basis, crisis management mechanism, EU Data Hub, EU Customs Authority

Conceptualising US Immigration Detention as Carceral Real Estate

AbstractThe US Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates the largest detention system in the world, holding over 35,000 people in October 2023. The vast majority of this capacity is outsourced to corrections firms, particularly the two largest, CoreCivic and GEO Group. This article analyses how private corrections firms finance US immigrant detention capacity as a specialised asset class of government real estate. To understand the emergence of “carceral real estate”, I bring political geographies of migration into conversation with economic geographies of real estate. In doing so, I argue that creating “carceral real estate” enables the abstraction and valuation of migrant life as rent and, in turn, presumes a continuously flowing, fungible migrant population. In this context, migrants valued as underpaid labour in the wider economy are re‐valued for their unproductivity in detention. And yet this idealised geography of human and economic flows never fully materialises, but is instead rife with volatility, disruption, and political contestation. The article closes by discussing implications for abolition geographies.

Immigration policy shocks and infant health

This paper evaluates the effect of positive and negative immigration policy shocks on infant health outcomes in the U.S. I examine changes in mean birth weight and the incidence of low birth weight (LBW) at the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) level around two major institutional shocks: The 1986 Immigration Reform Act (IRCA), which favored immigrants, and the increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency arrests at the start of 2017 which might have put immigrants at greater risk of apprehension. It uses a triple difference approach, comparing birth outcomes of foreign-born mothers with U.S.-born mothers (relative to mothers living in MSAs with a higher and lower concentration of IRCA applications and an increase in ICE arrests) before and after the two immigration policies. I find that in MSAs that had higher IRCA applications, mean birth weight increased, and the incidence of LBW decreased by 3–6 percent for babies born to foreign-born mothers. By contrast, in MSAs that had higher ICE arrests starting in 2017, mean birth weight decreased, and the incidence of LBW increased by 3–7 percent for babies born to foreign-born mothers. The effect of the increase in ICE arrests was more pronounced among mothers who were born in Latin and Central American countries. Sub-sample analysis shows that the incidence of LBW increased by as much as 12 percent for babies born to foreign-born mothers of Hispanic origin.

On the (Bi)partisan Pleasures of Outrage in the Immigration “Debate”

This essay examines how left-of-center media reporters and commentators responded to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and Mississippi’s criminalization of migrant workers in their aftermath. These responses focused largely on the moral or ethical implications of detaining, arresting, and deporting the migrant workers involved in the case, often by crafting a tightly woven image of the innocence of these particular migrants and, even more so, of their children. As a result, public discourse about the politics of immigration enforcement and its relationship to criminality and citizenship were reduced to an ostensibly apolitical and ideologically neutral appeal that cannot be contested: to protect children. The innocence of children was also coupled with the giddy criminalization of those who “torture” them, namely Donald Trump. These dual constructions—an innocence that marks one as socially valuable and a criminality that marks one as monstrous—produce a moral absolutism that undermines an otherwise rational political project whose core tenets are diversity and multiculturalism. Outrage and grievance directed against criminality, even when aimed at political enemies, upholds the moral foundations of racist and xenophobic hatred that has been used to justify the disproportionate policing, surveillance, and incarceration of people of color.

The Future Role of Customs

Customs agencies have some powerful tools at their disposal to supervise the international movement of goods. These tools are designed for a specific purpose: verification of ‘the nature’ of the goods at the time of border crossing. More particularly, these tools facilitate, on the one hand, the determination of the fundamentals to calculate, levy and collect the right amount of taxes and duties, and on the other, determine whether the goods are allowed to be brought into the country and if yes, to check if they are subject to any restrictions. The limited research on the effectiveness of these tools shows that they are not easily applicable for situations they were not designed for. New EU regulations and the border-related enforcement they entail, however, put increasing demands on the role of customs agencies. This raises questions if Customs, with its current set of approaches, is fit for the future. In this paper, we look at three proposed regulatory developments in the EU (regulation on fluorinated gasses, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and the Regulation to Prohibit Products made with Forced Labour) to assess the role these envisage for Customs and the application of elements from the Customs enforcement toolbox. We find that the expected roles of Customs in our three cases are quite different, and that their reliance on the standard customs tools is rather minimal. Therefore, a thorough discussion is required regarding whether Customs should be involved in new enforcement activities that demand different, enhanced or new elements in the enforcement toolbox, or that maybe another authority, at another time and place in the supply chain, should become competent. In any case, for regulations that require enforcement based on information of the entire supply chain, customs agencies need to upgrade their competencies in their role as an enforcement agency at the border. These competencies revolve, at least, around cooperation with other competent authorities, as well as the integration of system-based and transaction-based supervision.