Integrating Federal Statistics on Criminal and Administrative Responses to Illegal Entrants in the U.S.

• In Event: State and Federal Responses to Crime

Abstract

This paper uses 2010-2014 data from the Federal Justice Statistics Program (FJSP) and other published sources to provide a more comprehensive statistical accounting of the federal government’s response to illegal entrants in the U.S. On the administrative side, an individual who is considered removable from the U.S. is handled by a unique arrangement where the DOJ's Executive Office for Immigration Review oversees adjudication and the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for law enforcement (apprehension), prosecution, detention, supervised release, and removal. On the criminal side, immigration suspects are processed through the traditional federal criminal justice process from arrest and detention by the U.S. Marshals Service, adjudication and sentencing in federal district court, and imprisonment by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The authors describe trends in the federal government’s use of each response and discusses ways that their interdependency necessitates a statistical collection that permits analysis of both to better understand the impacts of enforcement policy choices.

Authors

• Mark Motivans, Bureau of Justice Statistics

• Suzanne Strong, Bureau of Justice Statistics