Arrests are up, deportations are (maybe) down: An expert helps us parse the government’s confusing immigration numbers.

Austin Kocher spends around 12 hours a day looking at immigration data sets, submitting open records requests, and sharing what he’s learning—in op-eds and academic papers, essays on his Substack, and posts to the social media platform X. A research professor at Syracuse University, Kocher has spent the past decade focusing on understanding immigration enforcement—how it works, and why. He’s also spent untold hours interviewing everyone from local sheriffs to immigration judges to families caught up in removal proceedings to better understand how the system functions.

These days, he’s especially busy, as he’s trying to “do my best to make sense of the chaos of immigration news.” With the constant flood of executive actions around immigration enforcement, news reports, and social media posts, it can be hard to parse out what exactly is going on. Whether he’s speaking to lawyers, journalists, or community members, “people are just so desperate for information right now,” Kocher told 285 South. 

So, in as plain language as possible, we asked him to help us understand “basically what the numbers say and don’t say.” We spoke to Kocher about how we could make sense of immigration enforcement actions since the Trump administration took office; what metro Atlanta residents can do to prepare, in case they’re targeted; and what keeps him going right now. 

We started off by asking him if anything about his job gathering data had changed under the current administration. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

So, there are a couple things that are consistent. 

One is that ICE is still producing their detention data. Congress requires them to. That’s become the most important data set—to be very specific about it: ICE’s detention spreadsheet, they release about every two weeks. They’re delayed for some reason right now, so I’m a little concerned. I hope that we’re not gonna have problems, but it should have been out last week. 

The other thing that’s consistent is the Freedom of Information Act public records request process is always long. They’re always reluctant to release information and as of yet, I haven’t necessarily seen any indication that [this administration] is really different. But I’m meeting with a bunch of colleagues in a couple weeks to discuss what we’re all seeing, and maybe other people are seeing things I’m not.

What has changed is two things.

One, the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, which is a really important agency with a really great team that does good data work—the Trump administration has been withholding their monthly enforcement reports, which means we’re not getting the best data that we should have to the public about what’s really going on.

What sort of data do they gather? 

Arrests, deportations, deportations by different agencies, encounters along the border—lots of really good data. And they’re special because they are not under ICE or CBP.* They’re an independent agency within DHS. They have a level of sophistication in terms of their technical knowledge—they have a lot of PhDs there. Frankly, they just have a very educated, very professional, academic-level team. That’s very different than what the agencies typically have. 

So not having that data is crucial, and it’s especially important because of the second thing that’s changed: This administration has been all over the place in making numerical claims about what’s happening.

For instance, they’re claiming that they’ve deported over 140,000 people at this point. The issue with that, going back to my previous point, is maybe they’re just making that number up. But what’s more likely is that they are counting things in weird ways and they’re not telling us. Because that number is implausible—not impossible, but it’s implausible.

* ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and CBP stands for Customs and Border Protection. Both agencies are housed within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); ICE focuses more on immigration enforcement in the interior of the country, while CBP chiefly monitors the border. 

Can you help us understand the deportation numbers? And basically, how the numbers are different from last year? You’re saying we’re not sure how the administration is coming up with the numbers. But as far as we know, it seems like deportations are actually down compared to last year on a per-day basis?

Yes. It varies over time, but the reported number of ICE deportations is certainly no higher than it was last year, or earlier this fiscal year, during the Biden administration. 

So it’s just confusing in a lot of ways. It sort of gets at the broader point, which is even when you don’t know if they’re telling the truth or not, the real issue is they’re just making claims and they’re not providing any evidence whatsoever. And they’re doing the same thing with data that they’re doing with deportations. They’re making claims about people having affiliations with Tren de Aragua or these other groups, but they’re not substantiating it. So basically, they’re doing what they’re doing everywhere, which is, they’re making wild claims and not providing any evidence.

Is data around ICE arrests any better? What do we know about ICE arrests, and how they compare to last year?

Arrest-wise, we don’t have any public data on that at the moment. We can infer it by the number of people booked into facilities. There’s no question the number of people in detention has grown, the number of people booked into facilities has grown. ICE is certainly doing a lot more stuff. No question about that. But it’s a little difficult to quantify at the moment, and to locate: It’s hard to say how much are they doing in Chicago or Georgia, or other places.

And in terms of ICE arrests of people with a criminal record versus those without it, what does the data that we do have say?

What we know, we know from what ICE produces in the detention spreadsheet. So it’s always possible that there are perspectives on the data that we don’t have a full comprehensive view on. 

However, when we just look at the breakdown of people in detention, one thing that I’ve been tracking—and actually kind of predicted before the Trump administration started—is that we would see some of the biggest growth among people who had no criminal history. And that’s what we’ve seen, at least in terms of a breakdown of people in ICE detention. There’s more ICE activity and the whole detention system is growing. A lot of the group that’s growing the most are immigrants without any criminal history.

Here in Georgia, five more counties—Monroe, Montgomery, Murray, Spalding, and Walker—recently signed on to 287(g), a controversial program in which local agencies, like sheriff’s departments, assist ICE with immigration enforcement. What should Georgia residents be thinking about in terms of 287(g) right now?

I’ve done quite a bit of on-the-ground research into 287(g) in Atlanta. What I would say is—from interviewing a lot of law enforcement and interviewing a lot of immigrants in the area—generally speaking, there’s good reason why avoiding a county with a 287(g) agreement could be in the interest of immigrants, whether they’re documented or undocumented. There’s probably good reason why one should just be mindful about traveling through even as a person of color. 

I’ve seen both hard data as well as a lot of reports from people about feeling targeted for traffic stops. Law enforcement can look very different in 287(g) counties than other counties, and the consequences can be much more serious, because the pipeline between getting pulled over for some random traffic violation and ending up deported can be much more direct. In a 287(g) county, that’s a pipeline to deportation. And these days, when the government is sending people to CECOT in El Salvador and refusing to get people back out, that’s a really scary potentiality.

What should any noncitizens, whatever their status, be thinking about right now?

So everything I have to say, I have to caveat with the fact that I’m not an attorney, and definitely not an immigration attorney. I think a good know-your-rights training is always important, especially from local attorneys who really know what they’re doing. So let me just get that out there first. If individuals are not connected with organizations who understand the issues and understand what meaningful support looks like, now is a good time. GLAHR is a good organization that’s been organizing for a long time.

One thing I hear and see from a lot of know-your-rights resources is, you know, be as documented as possible. When you travel, have documents on you. It’s just a good thing to make sure those documents are backed up with someone else, maybe digitally, maybe copies with other people.

The other thing that I see a lot of people encouraging is, you know, God forbid you get pulled over and detained or even put into jail—make sure that you have a plan in place for what’s going to happen next. Maybe that means you already have an attorney you know, or you’ve already consulted with an attorney. Maybe that means making sure that your family has a plan.

So many people are being targeted right now, so it’s just good to know: If something were to happen, who would you call, who has the right documents for you? If you have to pay an attorney, or you have to pay a bond or something, who has access to your accounts? Who’s going to support you? It’s a good time to plan before something bad happens. And I know it’s scary, and I know we don’t want to think about it, but it will save you a lot of headache.

I know some of this planning would have been relevant in the Biden administration or the Obama administration too. What is the thing that is most different about this moment in time?

The thing that is most different is nobody is safe, period. If you think that because you’re married to a U.S. citizen, you’re going to be okay; if you think because you came the right way, you’re going to be okay; if you think because you’ve worked really hard and paid taxes, you’re going to be okay . . . if you think you’re going to be okay, that’s not the case anymore. We see too many examples of all of those people getting arrested and detained. 

And yes, maybe you’re a U.S. citizen. Maybe you have a green card, and let’s say you do get arrested and detained in a jail or in an ICE facility. Maybe you will get out—there are reasons not everyone’s going to have the same experience. But, again, it’s going to be very different than it was during the Biden administration, or even during the first Trump administration.

What’s your biggest frustration right now, and what is the thing that gives you hope?

My biggest frustration is the lack of transparency on the part of the Trump administration. All of us have an interest in understanding objectively what the administration is doing, period. If you support Trump, you deserve to know the facts. If you don’t support Trump, you deserve to know the facts. 

What gives me hope? I don’t see a lot of hope, and that’s actually okay for me. I’m not a person who craves hope; what I would like more people to think about is, maybe instead of looking for hope, we need to look for preparation and response. That’s where I put my effort. So in that regard, I think that providing good information, as I try to do, and I know you try to do, helps people to understand and prepare and respond adequately. And if we do that, we might create the hope that we’re looking for. 

Just curious: Do you have an immigrant background or are you connected to an immigrant background? How did you get so involved in this work?

I stumbled into it. I guess my real connection comes from, I grew up in a very—I would say working-class, but it wasn’t even working-class—I grew up in a poor white family in Ohio, single mom with four kids. There’s a lot of things I don’t have in common with immigrants, but one thing I do have in common is, people are tough. People are trying to survive. I know what it’s like to go without, and I know what it’s like for a parent to put themselves on the line to try to raise their kids. 

And you know, over the many years of getting to know immigrants, I see the same tenacity and courage and hard work that I see in my mom and dad. I think we need stories that remember that there are actually really important things that connect us, across our immigrant backgrounds and across our racial differences. We’re working people, we’re trying to feed our families and survive. We’re not trying to be billionaires. We’re just trying to put food on the table and live and enjoy our families. And that’s it, period. And that should bring us all together.