The Data Tells a Story
Immigration enforcement happens in two fundamentally different ways. In cooperative jurisdictions, when local police arrest someone for an unrelated crime, ICE can lodge a detainer—a request to hold that person briefly so ICE can take custody when local charges are resolved. The transfer happens inside a jail, controlled and administrative. In non-cooperative sanctuary jurisdictions, local authorities refuse these detainers. This forces ICE to locate and arrest people in the community—at homes, workplaces, during traffic stops, and on streets. One method happens behind secure walls. The other happens in public—where crowds form, tensions escalate, and split-second decisions can turn deadly.
In cooperative states that honor
detainers, most arrests, roughly 70% on average, occur through controlled transfers inside jails.
Tennessee handles about 75 percent this way. In Texas and Florida, roughly 65 percent.
These are administrative handovers in secure facilities—no crowds, no street
confrontations, no high-speed chases.The risk is now increasing. Since September 2025, federal agents have fired their weapons during vehicle-related enforcement operations at least 11 times, according to The New York Times. The incidents occurred in Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Portland, Maryland, and Phoenix — an immigrant was shot last evening while resisting arrest by ICE in Minneapolis. At least nine of the eleven occurred in sanctuary or limited-cooperation jurisdictions—precisely where enforcement has been pushed out of jails and into streets and traffic stops.
When enforcement occurs during traffic stops and street-level encounters, risk escalates quickly. Vehicles may be used—or perceived—as weapons. Decisions must be made in seconds. Add instant, context-free video and partisan storytelling, and the danger multiplies. This pattern is not a coincidence. It reflects the predictable consequences of how federal law enforcement is being forced to operate. Disrupting federal law enforcement does not stop enforcement—it only forces it into more dangerous forms. The result is more chaos, more confrontation, and more lives at risk—including the lives of the very immigrants these actions claim to protect.
Method, Not Volume
President Barack Obama conducted interior immigration enforcement at similar or higher levels than other recent administrations. Enforcement under Obama relied far more on cooperation and jail transfers than on street-level arrests. There was far less organized resistance and little public confrontation, because enforcement occurred primarily through custodial transfers rather than street arrests. The difference wasn't the volume of enforcement—it was the method and the level of organized resistance.
Why Escalation Continues
Here is what makes
this crisis so dangerous. ICE is enforcing federal law. The federal government
cannot—and will not—stop enforcing the law in jurisdictions that disagree with
it. To do so would be to surrender federal authority itself, not just on
immigration but on any issue where local resistance emerges. This is not about
any particular administration. It is about whether federal law means anything
at all. To acquiesce is to abandon the rule of law.
Many protesters
believe they are doing valuable moral work by disrupting enforcement
operations. They see themselves as the civil rights activists of our time. But
every act of obstruction forces the federal government to prove that it can
still enforce the law. The government escalates not out of cruelty, but because
backing down would invite challenges everywhere. That dynamic locks both sides
into an escalation spiral. Neither believes it can step back first.
What Needs to Happen Now
If we genuinely care
about citizens, law enforcement officers, and immigrants, we must stop pretending this is a simple
contest between good and evil.
What is needed now is an immediate de-escalation agreement with both sides acting simultaneously—not next month, not after more studies, now. Sanctuary jurisdictions must honor ICE detainers for individuals already in custody, shifting enforcement back to controlled jail transfers. In return, federal enforcement must commit publicly and unambiguously to strict prioritization: criminal convictions, serious pending charges, gang members, documented public safety threats, and final deportation orders. No more. Both sides act. Both sides get accountability. Lives get saved.
At the same time, political leaders at every level should discourage obstruction and escalation. Local officials should make clear that interference with lawful law enforcement operations is unacceptable. Federal officials should commit to using proportional tactics that prioritize safety and avoid unnecessary confrontations in the streets.
This approach shifts enforcement back to controlled custodial settings—the model already used in cooperative states. Current data shows this is feasible: roughly a quarter of ICE detainees have criminal convictions, and another quarter face pending charges. Prioritizing these cases through jail transfers already works in much of the country.Minneapolis as a Warning
Minneapolis should
not be treated as a one-off tragedy or a political weapon. It should be
understood as a warning. If we continue to choose outrage and obstruction over
responsibility and reform, escalation will continue. More lives will be
lost—civilians, immigrants, and officers alike.
A workable model
already exists. Cooperative states prove it works. The data shows it reduces
dangerous confrontations. We do not need louder voices. We need more people willing to act like citizens in collaboration with those they may not agree with to find solutions that will save lives and prevent harm and destruction.
A Simple Ask
If you agree that endless escalation helps no one, do something constructive. At minimum share this post on your social media and email. We have to begin a conversation. That does not happen if you read this and write it off because you disagree with it or do not like the tone of my blog site. Comment and engage.
We are calling for mutual de-escalation: custodial cooperation in exchange for prioritized, safer enforcement. You do not have to agree with every detail. You only need to believe the current path is unsustainable and that compromise is better than chaos.
Editor’s Note
For readers new to my writing, this post may sound firm, but it is not sudden. The views expressed here reflect more than a decade of writing, research, and reflection on immigration, law, and moral responsibility. I have consistently tried to hold together two ideas our politics insists on pulling apart: compassion for people and respect for the rule of law. The essays listed below trace that work from early warnings to recent policy proposals.
The Push and Pull to Get to
the Border (2014) – Early warnings on incentives driving surges.
They Must Go Home to
Central America (2014) – Humane repatriation amid crisis.
Balancing Borders and
Brotherhood (2014) – The core tension.
Brotherhood and Borders
(2017) – Deeper moral
grounding.
Immigration Reform Part 1:
Necessary and Inevitable (2025) –
Why reform can no longer be avoided and must begin with restoring enforcement
credibility.
Immigration Reform Part 2:
Why We Keep Failing –
How political incentives, false compassion, and enforcement breakdowns derail
every reform effort.
Immigration Reform Part 3:
Strategic Imperatives –
The core principles required for a workable, humane, and durable immigration
system.
Immigration Reform Part 4:
From Strategy to Policy –
Translating principles into concrete enforcement, legal status, and system
reforms.
An Open Letter on the
Dignity Act of 2025 –
A measured critique of the Act’s intentions, risks, and unintended
consequences.
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Thank you for the research and data.
ReplyDeleteI received an email comment from Tom that I am posting here for him: Dan, I will join the other commenter in thanking you for your research and assembly of data, for grappling with complicated issues in a serious way, and for inviting conversation around it.
ReplyDeleteI'll start by commenting on where I agree with you. On the sentiments, there is little daylight between us: "What is needed now is an immediate de-escalation agreement with both sides acting simultaneously...." "If we continue to choose outrage and obstruction over responsibility and reform, escalation will continue..." "We need more people willing to act like citizens in collaboration with those they may not agree with..." "We have to begin a conversation..." "...the current path is unsustainable and compromise is better than chaos.
"I largely agree with you on the policy prescription as well, and what reasonable compromise might look like. I also agree with you that data - always - tell a story.
This is one conceivable story to tell from the data featured. But I think there's a chicken and the egg quandary here... the argument reads to me as if escalation is being caused by non-compliance. I think a different story can be told, also buttressed by data, in which non-compliance is being caused by escalation.
My general theory of the case starts with recognition that Trump is not known for moderation or nuance. His ideas and positions tend to be binary in nature. Everything is "big" "beautiful" "the best" "incredible" "more" "everything" or "terrible" "wicked" "nasty" "less" "nothing."
In his latest campaign, he wisely seized upon Americans' distaste for excessive and uncontrolled rates of illegal immigration. He quickly went about mobilizing resources and implementing policies which, to the vast majority of American people, were directionally correct. As is his nature though, he has gone too far.
Recent polling by the WSJ found that a majority of Americans believe he's gone too far in deporting illegal immigrants, and he's gone too far in deploying ICE. Why might they feel this way? What data exist to explain this perspective?
While it remains true that the majority of people arrested by ICE and booked in ICE detention have a criminal record or pending changes, more recently updated data indicate a plurality have no criminal record. The trend lines seem to be such that that category of detainees will come to represent a higher and higher proportion of all detainees, potentially becoming a majority in the not-too-distant future.This appears to be a significant departure from historic norms.
While comparable data were not collected and documented to the same degree throughout the entirety of the Obama administration, we can see during the final years of his second term that this category of detainees - again, those with neither a criminal record nor pending charges - represented a far smaller proportion of the overall group (<10%).
Simultaneously, more arrests are being made than ever before. Even in the earlier Obama years, during which arrest numbers were higher, they never reached 328,000.Meanwhile, ICE is receiving more funding, its agent force has more than doubled, and training timelines are reportedly down significantly. In other words, at least by one metric - relative rates of arrest of criminal(+alleged) vs. noncriminal immigrants - operations are scaling as success is declining.
Then there is the qualitative data... the commentary or tweets, from Trump himself, but perhaps even more so from Miller, Vance, Bovino, & Noem which at times has had a "don't believe your eyes and ears" quality. It doesn't take one long in reviewing social media posts published by members of the administration to get the sense that wherever excesses in enforcement exist, they are to be highlighted and distributed at scale.
As mentioned initially, I am largely in agreement with you over the sentiments and corrective policy. But if you interpret the other data as I do, it's tough to imagine that policy being anything other than a pipe dream.
Tom — first, thank you for the care, time, and seriousness you brought to this. Thoughtful disagreement is rare, and I genuinely appreciate both your tone and the way you framed your concerns. Out of respect for that effort, I’ll try to respond carefully and in the same spirit.
DeleteLet me start where we clearly agree. As you noted, there is very little daylight between us on the ends: the need for de-escalation, the unsustainability of the current path, and the belief that outrage and obstruction are preventing reform rather than advancing it. I also agree that data always tell a story — and that different datasets can support different, even competing, narratives.
Where we begin to diverge is less on values or policy than on causality and sequencing. You raise a fair question about whether escalation is driving non-compliance, or non-compliance is driving escalation. I think two things can be true at once — and at this point, assigning blame matters far less than stopping a cycle that is clearly becoming more dangerous.
The post you’re responding to was not intended as a final position, but as a starting point in a broader examination I’m undertaking in a book I’m finishing now, Brotherhood and Borders: America’s Struggle to Balance Compassion and the Rule of Law. It looks at why this issue has become so polarizing, why that polarization blocks reform, and how the contest between sanctuary jurisdictions and federal enforcement has eroded trust on all sides.
My own view — informed by research and lived experience — is that sanctuary policies and culture, particularly in certain cities, have become a primary accelerant, especially when we can point to many jurisdictions where cooperative arrangements exist and enforcement occurs quietly and safely. That said, I fully agree we are past the point where moral score-keeping is useful.
What we need now is de-escalation and negotiation, not escalation and messaging. That means agreement on a few basics: the federal government’s duty to enforce the law; the importance of cooperative, off-street enforcement; honoring detainers for serious crimes or final removal orders; and coordination with local authorities to reduce risk to everyone involved.
On public opinion, I agree polling is shifting. My experience, however, is that opinion responds more to images and emotion than to data. Americans are reacting to what they’re seeing — chaos and confrontation — and they want it to stop. That doesn’t mean they’ve rejected enforcement; it means they want it effective, lawful, and boring again.
On data, I appreciate the care you took in distinguishing trends. Shortly after publishing the post, I revised it to rely on arrest-level data rather than detention data because arrests more accurately reflect enforcement targeting, which was the question I was examining. After digging deeply into this, I’ve chosen to rely on three sources only: TRAC for detentions, the NYT–UCLA database for arrests, and Pew for long-term context. I intentionally exclude biased news reporting, interpretive studies and advocacy extrapolations — not because they’re malicious, but because they often answer different questions.
I largely agree with your concerns about federal rhetoric. I still believe President Trump is transactional in the best and worst senses of that word — and that he does adjust when something isn’t working. I expect something to change within a few weeks. I won’t be surprised of Secretary Noem or Stephen Miller take the fall on this. Restraint matters, and adjustment will require change on both sides — sanctuary jurisdictions acknowledging risk, and federal officials prioritizing cooperation over signaling.
Where we are clearly aligned is in believing this path is unsustainable, and that humility, curiosity, and compromise are now necessities. I appreciate you engaging this seriously, and I hope you’ll continue to push where you think my framing falls short. That kind of engagement is exactly what we need more of.
After publishing Wake Up America, I continued this discussion offline with Tom, whose thoughtful comment appears above. That conversation caused me to revisit my own framing — and to recognize that I did not treat one side of this issue as fairly as I should have.
ReplyDeleteWhile I continue to believe sanctuary policies are a major contributor to the chaos we are seeing in places like Minneapolis, it is also clear to me now that escalated ICE enforcement itself contributed to the chaos in Minneapolis, particularly as pressure mounts to sustain or increase arrest numbers over time.
Looking closely at arrest-level data (the appropriate measure for enforcement targeting), the percentage of arrests involving individuals with criminal convictions or pending charges has been relatively stable at around 70% through October 15, 2025, which is the most recent official data available. But that cutoff inevitably limits our view of what is happening now. As enforcement continues, the universe of individuals in those categories is finite. Over time, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain those percentages without expanding enforcement deeper into the community and toward less serious — or purely civil — violations.
Unofficial and unconfirmed data suggest this shift may already be underway. I do not rely on leaked or agenda-driven sources, but the underlying dynamic is neither surprising nor avoidable if numerical pressure persists. Sustained demands to “keep the numbers up” inevitably change enforcement behavior, pushing arrests into neighborhoods and increasing the likelihood of confrontation and disorder.
In rereading my original post, I see that I did not sufficiently acknowledge this side of the equation. Tom’s engagement sharpened my thinking, and I am grateful for it. These are exactly the kinds of conversations we need more of — serious, curious, and willing to revisit assumptions in pursuit of something closer to the truth.