Officials working in the United States immigration and definitively enforcement (ICE) have been called out for providing the public with false arrest documentation and other materials. In making its apology, the major recommendation was included in a report released in March 2017, which highlighted jurisdictions that did not respect requests for detention of immigrants deemed to have been breaking the law for about two days.
The document singled out Franklin County, Pennsylvania. However, the official books of this county gave a different picture. No data existed on subjects pertaining to whether there were any inquiries or transfer requests in the week ending February 3, although the county transferred two detainees to ICE and did not flip back a single request. Given that lack of information, county officials immediately raised alarm with ICE concerning its representation of the occurrences.
It was only after this that agency representatives stipulated the mishap, attributing it to difficulties in processing information. ICE’s York office, with assistant field office director Stephen Ritchey, admitted the mistakes and expressed regret to county leaders for the chaos and bad publicity. He assured the need to prevent reoccurrence is being addressed. Whether misrepresentation exists in Philadelphia or Chester County remains to be seen.
Another issue is whether ICE will make revisions to documentation—error corrections are expected, though the accuracy of the Compliance Tracking system remains in question.
