More than 10,000 immigrants detained each year in California are parents of US citizens
By
Genevieve Leigh
18 May 2017
A new report titled “I Still Need You” published Monday by Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 10,000 immigrants detained by ICE each year in California are parents of US citizens.
The study is particularly significant because it is one of the first systematic attempts to determine the number of detainees who have children that are citizens.
While California records mostly do not specify whether or not detainees have US citizen children, Human Rights Watch looked at nearly 300,000 immigrants detained by the Obama administration in facilities in California over a four-and-a-half year span, from 2011 to 2015. The records for one nine-month span, October 2014 to June 2015, consistently contained data on detainees’ children. The authors used statistical methods to reliably fill the gaps for the rest of the period.
Analyzing the records for that nine-month span, the study’s authors found that 42 percent of detainees had US citizen children. This means approximately over 10,000 parents were taken from their families each year from 2011 to 2015. The number of families separated by the draconian US immigration policy is undoubtedly much higher, as this statistic does not take into consideration parents whose children are not US citizens.
It is estimated that California holds the second highest number of immigrants in detention facilities on any given day, holding approximately 15 percent of the immigrants detained nationwide, following only Texas.
Immigration authorities detain noncitizens in 10 main California immigration detention facilities, which housed a total average daily population of 4,594, according to government data through December…