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Fact check: How many lawful immigrants were mistakenly detained by ICE between 2020 and 2024?
Executive Summary
The available reporting and government reviews do not provide a definitive count of how many lawful immigrants were mistakenly detained by ICE between 2020 and 2024; public records and oversight reports emphasize data failures, inconsistent practices, and specific anecdotal cases rather than a consolidated error tally. Multiple analyses from 2024–2025 document glaring mistakes in ICE detention records, inconsistent field office practices, and known incidents of citizens or lawful residents being misidentified, but none of the assembled sources supplies a validated total for 2020–2024 [1] [2]. The best conclusion from available materials is that the number is unknown and likely undercounted because ICE’s reporting systems and recordkeeping have recognized flaws across the period in question [2].
1. Why observers say “we don’t know” — systemic data failures explain the gap
Oversight reports and independent analyses repeatedly identify data quality and counting problems that prevent an accurate tally of lawful immigrants wrongly detained during 2020–2024. The Government Accountability Office and follow-up coverage highlight that ICE’s detention data contain errors, that offices use inconsistent practices for collecting and reporting information, and that official numbers often reflect average daily populations rather than total bookings, which masks the true flow of people through custody [2]. These institutional weaknesses mean researchers and watchdogs cannot reliably distinguish between lawful immigrants, noncitizens with removable statuses, and citizens misidentified in automated matches or manual records, so any simple sum for 2020–2024 would rest on incomplete and potentially misleading data [2] [3].
2. What the GAO-era numbers show — prior estimates and limitations
Prior publicly cited figures demonstrate the problem but do not directly answer the 2020–2024 question: a GAO account covering 2015–2020 found hundreds of potential U.S. citizens arrested, with dozens detained or deported, while cautioning that the true counts could be higher due to incomplete records [1]. That finding establishes a baseline that errors and wrongful detentions occur, and it shows how incomplete administrative records can understate the scope of misidentification. However, these figures stop at 2020 and do not map neatly onto subsequent years; agencies and analysts note data collection and categorization problems that persist into 2024 and 2025, undermining efforts to extrapolate a reliable 2020–2024 total from earlier samples [1] [2].
3. Recent reporting underscores continued operational errors and anecdotes
Post-2020 articles and investigative pieces document continued operational failures and offer case-level evidence of wrongful detention, such as an October 2025 case in Salt Lake City where a person with a work authorization was detained due to a prior removal order dating to 2020. While this specific case highlights real-world consequences and operational errors, news accounts and dashboards emphasize that the media anecdotes illuminate patterns rather than produce comprehensive counts for 2020–2024 [4] [3]. Reporting in 2025 also ties these incidents to systemic drivers — automated matching and inconsistent field procedures — which explain how lawful immigrants can be caught up in enforcement despite gaps in centralized, reliable reporting [3].
4. Independent dashboards and datasets provide context but no definitive tally
Analysts such as the Deportation Data Project and Vera Institute offer granular detention dashboards and longitudinal trends that improve transparency about ICE populations, yet their datasets do not isolate lawful immigrants mistakenly detained for the 2020–2024 window. These tools reveal detention volumes, facility-level counts, and changes over time, demonstrating trends like detention level increases and varying facility practices, but they do not resolve the citizenship- or lawful-status misidentification question because source records lack consistent, validated flags distinguishing wrongful detentions from lawful enforcement actions [5] [6] [7]. Consequently, these richer data resources help frame the problem but do not replace the missing metric regulators and researchers require.
5. Bottom line: evidence of errors, absence of a validated count, and what that implies
The assembled sources collectively establish that wrongful detentions and deportations of citizens and lawful residents occurred and that ICE’s recordkeeping has repeatedly failed to support accurate counting, but they do not produce a validated number for lawful immigrants mistakenly detained between 2020 and 2024 [1] [2]. The implication is straightforward: without concerted improvements in ICE’s data systems, transparent public reporting on bookings versus average daily populations, and independent verification, policymakers and the public cannot know the full scale of mistaken detentions in that period. Accountability efforts cited in 2024–2025 recommend reforms to close this information gap, which is the prerequisite for producing the kind of precise count the original question seeks [2] [3].