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A Department of Homeland Security website naming and shaming the “Worst of the Worst” undocumented migrants held in federal custody had to be altered after it was found to be “rife with errors,” according to a report.
The site, which Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other Trump administration officials have promoted on social media, is intended to draw attention to the more notorious people to have entered the United States illegally and gone on to commit further crimes, leading to their arrests.
It lists around 25,000 alleged offenders, with almost half originally from Mexico, according to CNN, which analyzed the site.
Detainees originally from countries like Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba, Iran, China, Nicaragua, Haiti, Jamaica, and Somalia are also prominently displayed.
CNN found that the charges listed for hundreds of immigrants featured were “described incorrectly,” which a DHS spokesperson acknowledged when presented with the network’s findings, blaming a “glitch” and reporting back that the issue had been “resolved” and the site updated.
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The Department of Homeland Security’s ‘Worst of the Worst’ website, naming and shaming what it alleges are the most dangerous undocumented migrants it has arrested (Department of Homeland Security)
The Independent has reached out to the DHS for further comment.
CNN noted that while many people catalogued on the site had been charged with serious crimes like homicide or sexual assault, others were on there for more minor offences like traffic infractions, marijuana possession, or illegal reentry, arguably creating a false equivalence.
Asked whether that “might undermine the agency’s public messaging about its operations,” the spokesperson said: “This is a glitch on the WOW website that impacted about 5 percent of the entries… Many of these who are listed as traffic offenses and illegal reentry, which is a felony, have additional crimes.
“All of these individuals have been arrested by ICE and all of them committed crimes breaking our nation’s laws, including some who had felonies for illegal re-entry.”
CNN also noted that many of the listed people were arrested in cities that have large prison facilities, which it suggested was “a potential indication that those detained were already in federal prison or had been transferred from state custody.”
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department has faced intense criticism this year, particularly over ICE’s disastrous Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota (Getty)
It pointed to the high number of arrests from towns like Conroe and Eden in Texas; Lompoc, California; and Yazoo City, Mississippi, to make its case, all of which are relatively small places with large federal detention centres nearby.
During the DHS’s disastrous recent Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, local officials accused the department of inflating its detention totals by taking credit for arrests already made by local law enforcement, who were subsequently transferred to federal custody as a matter of routine.
“This is no longer a simple misunderstanding,” Minnesota Department of Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said last month.
“At best, DHS fundamentally misunderstands Minnesota’s correctional system. At worst, it is pure propaganda, numbers released without evidence to stoke fear rather than inform the public.”
The DHS responded to that by issuing a statement: “All of these individuals have been arrested by ICE and placed in removal proceedings.”
John Sandweg, an acting ICE director in Barack Obama’s administration, told CNN that, while it is the agency’s mission to track down “the worst of the worst” and to “get them off the streets,” he felt the Trump administration had vastly overstated the extent of the problem.
“That population is not out there,” he said. “It’s just not there.”