ACLU Report Questions ICE Numbers From Enforcement Operation 

Human rights advocates are raising questions about reported immigration enforcement in West Virginia earlier this year.  

A report by Dragline and the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia (ACLU-WV) looks at arrest records from the immigration crackdown known as Operation Country Roads earlier this year.  

Last year, Gov. Patrick Morrisey entered into a partnership with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) known as the 287(g) Program which authorizes local law enforcement officers to perform specified immigration officer functions under the agency’s direction and oversight.  

ICE and U.S. Attorney Moore Capito of the Southern District of West Virginia claimed the operation netted 650 arrests in the state. But the ACLU’s analysis of ICE’s own arrest records shows 593 arrests were made in West Virginia, with the remainder occurring in Pennsylvania.  

Officials also claimed 19 arrested individuals had prior convictions for child sex abuse, drug possession and endangering the welfare of children. The report only found two people with prior misdemeanor drug possession convictions. None had convictions for crimes against 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 in a press release.  

At the time of the arrests, West Virginia Public Broadcasting did report on one individual who had two prior counts of endangering the welfare of children in Ravenna County, Ohio. 

The discrepancy may be explained by 185 individuals that were arrested but not detained in West Virginia. A third of those arrests were processed and deported in ICE field offices other than Charleston before the Freedom of Information Act snapshot for the report was generated. WVPB did report that the individual with the endangering of child welfare charges had a prior order for removal. 

But the report also found that during Operation Country Roads, more than a quarter of all arrests in West Virginia were processed without producing a detention record at all.  

Read the full report below: