Immigration and Customs Enforcement usually publishes press releases almost daily, sometimes multiple times a day. The agency uses these announcements to highlight arrests of people with serious criminal records, even though such cases represent a small fraction of overall enforcement. The press section is also where ICE is legally required to post notifications about deaths in detention.
Typically, the press page stays active, rarely going more than a day or two without updates. Yet there hasn’t been a single press release since January 20, a week ago.
It’s hard to know whether this silence is connected to the reported turmoil within the administration over how ICE and DHS are handling enforcement operations, or to the growing criticism following two recent shootings of U.S. citizens during immigration operations. The justification for these shootings remains contested, with many outlets and observers describing them as unjustified. Whether the administration is recalibrating its public messaging in response to blowback, including from within Trump’s own party, remains unclear.
https://www.ice.gov/newsroom
Possibly related, possibly not: ICE should have released its latest detention data last Thursday or Friday. As of Tuesday late morning, the agency still hasn’t posted the update. The data is now several days behind schedule. While delays occasionally happen, ICE has been remarkably punctual with data releases over the past two years, including during the current Trump administration. This delay stands out, but isn’t what I would flag as an emergency-level delay yet.
Without the latest data, we can’t verify current detention numbers or track how much the system has grown over the past two weeks. CBS News reported that ICE’s detained population has reached record highs around 73,000 people, but without official data, we can’t confirm these figures or understand the details behind them.
https://www.ice.gov/detain/detention-management
For those wondering if you somehow missed the latest ICE detention numbers: you didn’t. They haven’t released them yet. And the press page has been unusually quiet. What these things add up to isn’t yet clear, but the silence itself is notable.