A new report by Dragline and the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia (ACLU-WV) highlights numerous false claims made by government officials regarding the immigration crackdown known as Operation Country Roads earlier this year.
The 23-page report draws on actual arrest records obtained by the Deportation Data Project via the Freedom of Information Act about the 15-day crackdown.
When U.S. Attorney Moore Capito announced the results of Operation Country Roads, he said it swept up people convicted of child sex abuse, drug possession, and endangering the welfare of children.
“This analysis of ICE data shows the operation looked little to nothing like how it was described to the public,” ACLU-WV Executive Director Eli Baumwell said. “Records show zero detentions for sexual assault or any crime involving children and just two of the 593 arrests in West Virginia were for drug possession – both of which were misdemeanors.”
The report also found:
- The government inflated the total number of West Virginia arrests by about ten percent, claiming 650 people were arrested in the state. Records indicate the actual number was 593. The remaining arrests occurred in Pennsylvania.
- Three out of every four people arrested in West Virginia had no criminal record whatsoever, and were classified as “other immigration violators,” meaning they were held solely on suspicion of civil immigration violations.
- Only 42 detainees had any criminal charge on record. The most common charge among those 42 was misdemeanor DUI.
- The claim by the Trump administration that ICE is targeting “the worst of the worst” is less true than it was under its predecessor. In the 28 months before Trump took office, ICE detentions in West Virginia were almost exclusively for people with serious criminal histories. Of the 429 detentions during that period, 90.4 percent involved someone with a prior criminal conviction. Those held for civil immigration violations accounted for just 3.7 percent. In the 13 months after Trump took office, that ratio more or less reversed. Of the 2,847 detentions logged after Trump’s inauguration, just 17 percent have involved someone with a prior conviction (down from 90 percent). The share with no criminal record at all climbed from 4 percent to 64 percent.
The full report is available here.
Dragline is an investigative news site operated by Kyle Vass and underwritten by ACLU-WV.