Which ICE detention facilities have the highest rates of mistaken citizen detention?

1. What the major investigations say—and what they clearly do not say about “which facilities”

The most detailed investigative work in the dataset is ProPublica’s October 16, 2025 piece documenting over 170 cases of U.S. citizens held by immigration agents and describing patterns of racial profiling, physical mistreatment, and legal confusion; that report repeatedly notes the federal government does not systematically track citizen detentions, so it cannot produce a facility-level ranking ^[1]. Other contemporaneous reporting and advocacy letters echo ProPublica’s central finding that the problem is measurable in individual cases but unmeasured at scale, and none of the sources provide a vetted dataset that breaks incidents down by specific ICE lockups or calculates rates per facility ^{[3] [4]}. This absence of facility-level counts is the single largest barrier to answering the original question with confidence.

2. Where the reporting finds clusters of wrongful detentions—and why “clusters” are not the same as facility rates

Several cases cited in the October 2025 coverage and related congressional correspondence point to geographic clusters—for instance, multiple wrongful detention stories surfaced in Chicago, plus incidents reported in Puerto Rico, New Jersey, and other jurisdictions—suggesting certain enforcement operations or local practices produce more citizen detentions ^{[2] [4]}. These clusters reflect enforcement sweeps, workplace raids, or local field-office behavior rather than documented systemic failure at a particular detention center. Because ICE often moves detainees between facilities and because public records lack standardized incident logging, clusters of interactions that produce wrongful detention do not reliably translate into which detention facilities retain the highest rates of mistaken citizen detention ^{[1] [5]}.

3. Government responses and data inconsistencies—an evidentiary thicket

DHS and ICE have publicly disputed some characterizations while also producing inconsistent data releases, according to oversight groups and data analysts; ICE’s February 2025 data releases contained errors that led researchers to rely on earlier datasets, undermining confidence in any statistical claims about detention patterns ^[5]. Meanwhile, DHS statements deny racial profiling and assert enforcement is targeted, but contemporaneous coverage documents lawmakers demanding internal investigations and release of policies and case data—a clash between agency denials and independent reporting that underscores how data gaps advantage the agency and obscure accountability ^{[3] [6]}.

4. Root causes flagged by investigative reporting—how errors happen

Investigations published in October 2025 identify specific mechanisms driving wrong detentions: faulty automated record-matching, incomplete A-file checks, rushed field decisions during broad sweeps, variable agent training, and poor oversight of detainer issuance. Reported cases—Leonardo Garcia Venegas, Jason Brian Gavidia, George Retes—show agents acting on database flags or cursory checks without immediate human verification of citizenship, producing prolonged holds even when detainees presented valid identification ^{[2] [1]}. These operational failures produce misdetention incidents across jurisdictions and can funnel victims through many detention facilities, which complicates any effort to attribute concentrated responsibility to single centers.

5. Competing narratives, potential agendas, and what each side emphasizes

Independent journalists and civil-rights advocates emphasize systemic profiling, lack of accountability, and human costs, highlighting children detained and medical vulnerabilities among detainees; these sources call for mandatory tracking and oversight ^[1]. ICE and DHS issued rebuttals stressing targeted enforcement and disputing some reported cases’ innocence claims, framing critiques as errors in reporting or misinterpretation of operational needs ^[6]. Lawmakers on both sides press for documents or investigations: some demand transparency and reforms, while agency defenses stress data quality and enforcement prerogatives. These competing narratives reflect differing institutional incentives: advocates seek accountability and dataset creation, while DHS emphasizes operational discretion and data caveats ^{[3] [6]}.

6. What is knowable now—and what would be required to answer the original question

From the supplied material, the only defensible conclusion is that there are documented instances and geographic clusters of U.S. citizens wrongfully detained, but no validated public dataset names ICE detention facilities with the highest rates of mistaken citizen detention; answering the original question requires facility-level incident logs, A-file crosswalks, and transfer histories, none of which are publicly available in the cited sources ^{[1] [5]}. For a definitive facility ranking, Congress, DHS, or an independent watchdog would need to mandate standardized reporting of citizen-detainment incidents, publish a centralized database with timestamps and facility identifiers, and reconcile ICE operational records with court and hospital logs—steps recommended implicitly by lawmakers and journalists who have documented the issue ^{[3] [1]}.