Project Overview

The Immigration Data Explorer is an interactive dashboard designed to increase transparency and accessibility around immigration enforcement activities in the United States. Leveraging data from the Deportation Data Project, this tool provides a comprehensive view of arrest and detention records spanning from September 2023 through July 2025.

Key Features

• Interactive Exploration: Dynamically filter immigration arrest and detention records by date and case status.
• Custom Table Creation: Build data tables to focus on specific subsets of information relevant to your needs.
• Export Functionality: Download generated tables in common formats (e.g., CSV) for further analysis or reporting.

Intended Audience

This project is valuable for a broad range of users, including:

• Journalists: To investigate and report on immigration enforcement patterns with empirical backing.
• Immigration Attorneys: To gain insights into detention and arrest data that may support casework or policy advocacy.
• General Public: To promote awareness and understanding of immigration enforcement activities in the U.S.

Data Source

The dataset used in this project is sourced from the Deportation Data Project, an initiative dedicated to compiling and publishing detailed immigration enforcement records.

Replicating

1. Clone

Clone the repository to your local machine:

git clone https://github.com/appelson/ICE_dashboard

2. Data

Download arrest data from the Deportation Data Project.

3. App

Open the arrest.Rproj and detention.Rproj projects and, within each, app.R. This should create the app.

Project Structure

The repository is organized as follows to separate concerns and facilitate development:

├── README.md
├── arrest
│   ├── app.R
│   ├── arrest.Rproj
│   ├── arrest.parquet
│   └── rsconnect
│       └── shinyapps.io
│           └── appelson
│               ├── arrest.dcf
│               └── immigration.dcf
├── cleaning.R
├── detention
│   ├── app.R
│   └── rsconnect
│       └── shinyapps.io
│           └── appelson
│               └── detention.dcf
└── home
    ├── app.R
    └── home.Rproj