About the Deportation Data Project
The Deportation Data Project collects and posts public, anonymized U.S. government immigration enforcement datasets. We use the Freedom of Information Act to gather datasets directly from the government, and we also post datasets that the government has posted proactively or in response to others’ requests. We expect these datasets to be used by journalists, researchers, lawyers, and policymakers.
We post mostly individual-level datasets. Individual-level data is most useful to those with a background in data analysis, allowing these users to make their own decisions about how to analyze the data.
We write documentation for each dataset, including its limitations and how it was obtained. We also provide a codebook for ICE data, which includes information about the variables in the dataset, their definitions, and their values. In addition, we post documentation from the agencies.
We also provide links to related projects that offer analyses, visualizations, and reports for journalists, attorneys, and the public based on these datasets.
We are grateful for the work of others, and especially of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), in first obtaining access to many of these datasets. Please get in touch if you have done relevant work in this area and we can do more to acknowledge your contributions.
Team
We are academics and lawyers who share a commitment to transparency in immigration enforcement data.
David Hausman, Faculty Director Website
David is an assistant professor of law at Berkeley. He studies immigration enforcement, drawing on a background in quantitative methods and litigation experience at the ACLU. He has conducted data analysis as a consulting expert in numerous immigration cases. He has also published scholarly research using immigration enforcement datasets, evaluating, for example, the effect of sanctuary policies (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), the effect of an algorithmic no-release policy (Journal of Law and Economics, forthcoming), the effect of the first Trump administration’s efforts to control the immigration courts (Journal of Law, Economics and Organization), and the effect of appeals on immigration court outcomes (University of Pennsylvania Law Review). He received his J.D. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University and clerked for Judge Stephen Williams on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Amber Qureshi, Litigation Director Website
Amber has extensive experience in federal court litigation on immigration and transparency issues. She has obtained favorable outcomes for clients in lawsuits against U.S. federal immigration agencies nationwide, including in litigation under the Freedom of Information Act, class action lawsuits challenging unlawful policies and practices, habeas petitions seeking to free people from detention, and lawsuits seeking money damages against the United States for injuries caused in immigration detention. Prior to starting her firm, Amber worked as an attorney at the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. She is a graduate of Yale Law School, Johns Hopkins University School of Education, and University of Maryland College Park. Amber grew up in Lahore, Pakistan. Her journey to the United States fuels her passion to help others navigate the legal system, ensuring they too can pursue the opportunities and freedoms she has been fortunate enough to have.
Graeme Blair, Deputy Director. Website
Graeme is an associate professor of political science at UCLA. He studies policing and how to make social science more credible, ethical, and useful. His book, Research Design in the Social Sciences was published by Princeton University Press in 2023, and his book Crime, insecurity, and community policing was published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. He received a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University and a B.A. in political science from Reed College. He is the recipient of the Leamer-Rosenthal Prize in Open Social Science.
Elora is the Jerome L. Greene Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School and a globally recognized advocate, practitioner, and voice for immigrants, asylum seekers, and unaccompanied migrant children. For more than a decade, Mukherjee has worked on issues related to enforcing the Flores Settlement Agreement, which sets a limit on the length of time children can be detained in federal immigration custody. Mukherjee began her career as a clerk for the Hon. Judge Jan E. DuBois of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and then won a fellowship with the ACLU Racial Justice Program. From 2007 to 2010, she worked at a law firm, specializing in police misconduct, prisoners’ rights, housing, and employment discrimination, and then rejoined the ACLU as a staff attorney until 2013.
Celena is an associate at the San Francisco-based plaintiffs’ law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP. She works primarily on mass torts, including on the Social Media Teen Mental Health MDL and representing victims of the recent wildfires in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of Stanford Law School. While at Stanford, Celena worked for the Community Law Clinic and was involved with Stanford Law School’s Latinx Law Students Association.
Michael is a partner at the San Francisco-based plaintiffs’ law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP.
Elena Gonzalez LinkedIn
Elena is a Team Lead in the Faculty Support Unit at Berkeley Law. She earned her BA in International Relations and Spanish from the University of San Diego. There, she engaged with local community groups and organizations to support direct service efforts for migrant communities. Most recently, she worked in the Housing Practice at the East Bay Community Law Center as an intake/program coordinator.
Lorena Ortega Guerrero LinkedIn
Lorena is a third-year student at Berkeley Law. Before law school, Lorena worked with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, helping represent detained non-citizens in removal proceedings. She has worked as a legal intern for the ACLU of Northern California’s Immigrants’ Rights Program and the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. Lorena earned her B.A. from Yale University. Lorena is committed to a career in advancing immigrants’ rights and advocating for her community.
Claudia Liss-Schultz LinkedIn
Claudia is a third-year student at Berkeley Law. Claudia is interested in free speech and government transparency and has worked at National Public Radio, the Knight First Amendment Institute, and the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic. Before law school, Claudia worked in documentary film.
Alex Stratton LinkedIn
Alex is a research fellow at Berkeley Law. He processes and analyzes data for empirical law and economics projects. Alex studied economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he worked on applied mathematics and computer science research.
Lucas Guttentag, Senior Advisor. Website
Lucas is Professor of the Practice of Law at Stanford Law School and Lecturer and Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School. With a career that spans litigation, advocacy, academia, and government, he is one of the nation’s leading experts on immigration law and civil rights. He founded and directed the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Immigrants’ Rights Project (IRP) for 25 years until 2010 arguing major cases throughout the country including in the United States Supreme Court. He served in senior immigration policy positions in the Biden administration Department of Justice, and in the Obama administration Department of Homeland Security. He has received many honors recognizing his contributions to the field, is often cited in the media, and regularly advises NGO’s, philanthropies, advocates, and others on immigration policy and litigation strategy. In 2017 he created the Immigration Policy Tracking Project, a website with searchable database that comprehensively compiles, summarizes, and indexes all Trump administration immigration policies and documents. Guttentag received his BA in history from UC Berkeley and his JD from Harvard Law School.
Michael K.T. Tan, Senior Advisor. Website
Michael is a Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law, Clinical Lecturer in Law, Associate Research Scholar in Law, and Executive Director of The Movement Project at Yale Law School. The Movement Project is an initiative to reform migration laws and frameworks to manage climate and demographic change, advance the interests of working people, and honor humanitarian goals. Tan previously served as Senior Advisor to the Co-Presidents of Community Change, a nationwide organization that empowers low-income people, particularly low-income people of color, to lead movements for social change. From 2008 to 2022, Tan held a range of roles at the Immigrants’ Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he began as a recipient of Yale Law School’s Arthur Liman Fellowship and later worked as a Skadden Fellow. Most recently, he served as the Project’s Deputy Director. In 2017, Tan received the Best LGBT Lawyer Under 40 Award from the National LGBT Bar Association. He was also recognized with the Best Under 40 Award from the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association in 2016 and named California Lawyer of the Year in Immigration Law by California Lawyer in 2014.