Have ice or dhs contacted DOC to share statistical data concerning the numbers discrepancy of how many illegal immigrants there are on detainers vs how many ice say there are
Executive summary
Minnesota’s Department of Corrections (DOC) says it has repeatedly sought—without success—to obtain the data and methodology behind Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/ICE claims that roughly 1,360 people in the state were subject to ICE detainers, and instead produced its own survey finding about 301 such individuals; DHS has reiterated its higher figures but, according to DOC statements, has not furnished the underlying source data or reconciled the discrepancy [1] [2] [3].
1. What DOC says it asked for and how DHS responded
DOC Commissioner Paul Schnell publicly asserted that his agency and county jails attempted multiple times to connect with DHS/ICE to get the documentation, methodology and jurisdictional breakdown behind the federal figure, and that those overtures produced no substantive disclosure—“no data, no data source, no tracking methodology, no jurisdictional breakdown, and no timeframe,” he said [3] [2]; DHS, while reiterating the existence of 1,360 detainers in state custody, did not provide the requested case-by-case evidence in the public reporting reviewed here [1].
2. DOC’s independent accounting and the magnitude of the gap
Faced with the federal claim, the Minnesota DOC conducted a statewide check of county jails and state prisons and reported 94 people in county jails with ICE detainers and 207 in state prisons—a total of roughly 301—far short of the 1,360 figure DHS publicized, and the DOC has said it cannot reconcile how DHS arrived at its higher total [4] [1] [5].
3. Concrete instances and DOC’s review of named cases
The DOC also reviewed individual names DHS released and found multiple mismatches—some people DHS listed had “no Minnesota records,” while in other cases DOC records showed it had coordinated transfers and confirmed ICE pickups—leading DOC to assert there is not a single confirmed instance where it released someone in violation of an ICE detainer [6] [7] [2].
4. DHS’s public posture and past patterns of reporting problems
DHS and ICE continued to tout enforcement operations and the larger numbers publicly, but the DHS spokespersons cited lists of a small number of allegedly released individuals rather than supplying a full reconciliation of their statewide count; critics point to prior episodes in which ICE’s public detainer lists were found inaccurate and were temporarily halted, raising a broader context for skepticism about raw federal tallies [1] [8].
5. Technical and legal context for interagency data sharing
Federal practice routes biometric and other booking information through federal databases that ICE can access, and DHS has mechanisms to request or obtain data from other agencies, but court rulings and ongoing litigation have also placed limits on certain kinds of interagency data transfers and required specificity about what can be shared—factors that complicate assumptions about simple, frictionless data exchange between DHS and state corrections systems [9] [10] [11].
6. Political incentives, accountability, and what remains unproven
This dispute sits at the intersection of federal enforcement priorities and state-level limits on cooperation; DHS’s public naming of jurisdictions is politically potent ahead of 2026 midterms, and Minnesota officials say the federal messaging has been harmful and inaccurate—while DHS has not, in public responses cited here, produced the comprehensive documentation DOC requested to either prove or resolve the discrepancy, leaving a factual lacuna that cannot be closed based on available reporting [12] [2] [1].
7. Bottom line: did DHS/ICE contact DOC with statistical data to explain the discrepancy?
Based on DOC’s repeated public statements that it has asked DHS/ICE for the data, methodology and case identifiers and received no substantive reply—and DHS’s public reiteration of its figures without producing the requested documentation in the reporting reviewed—there is strong, documented evidence that DOC sought such contact and that DHS did not, at least publicly, supply the statistical backing necessary to reconcile the difference [3] [2] [1]. The records available to reporters do not show DHS providing the detailed dataset or reconciliation DOC requested; absent new releases from DHS or an interagency briefing, the discrepancy remains unresolved in the public record [4] [8].