Former President Barack Obama, for example, issued similar guidelines to limit enforcement to public safety risks and recent entrants. But not all ICE officers followed them, according to Austin Kocher, a faculty fellow at TRAC.

“The research that we did showed that even though the Obama administration had the policies, ICE officers were still doing whatever they wanted,” Kocher said. “The Biden administration seems to be aware of this criticism in the past, but the jury is still out at the moment.”