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Tag: analysis

  • Ohio ICE detentions soar in Trump’s second term

    Ohio ICE detentions soar in Trump’s second term

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    Ohio ICE detentions soar in Trump’s second term

    The number of people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Ohio soared by nearly sixfold last year, according to a new analysis. 

    The analysis also found that detainees are moved around frequently and often to faraway places, making it difficult for them to maintain contact with legal counsel and families.

    And despite President Donald Trump’s claim that his immigration crackdown was aimed at “the worst of the worst,” less than 5% of those detained had been convicted of violent offenses, the report said.

    The Ohio Immigrant Alliance analyzed ICE data that had been obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests and processed by the Deportation Data Project. 

    It found that while 117 people were detained in Ohio on the average day in 2024, that number soared to 656 in 2025 — the first year of Trump’s second administration. During the same period, the number of local jails under contract with the federal government to hold ICE detainees tripled from two to six.

    The analysis also found that people were detained for weeks and that detainees were moved frequently. That could cause them to lose jobs — in addition to making it hard to stay in touch with their families and their lawyers.

    For example, 535 detainees were moved from the Butler County Jail in Hamilton to a detention facility in Alexandria, La., the report said.

    “The findings reveal a detention system defined by frequent transfers, relatively short detention periods for many individuals, and a detained population overwhelmingly composed of people without major criminal convictions,” it said. “Across all cases analyzed, the average length of stay was 55.71 days, while the median was 30.68 days, indicating that most individuals spend weeks in county jails and federal facilities before their cases are resolved.” 

    The report added that the Ohio jails act as an entry point to a system from which detainees might find it difficult — if not impossible — to escape.

    “These patterns point to a highly networked federal detention infrastructure in which Ohio’s facilities function as intake and transfer nodes within a much larger national system, with long-distance pipelines connecting Ohio facilities to staging centers in Louisiana, Texas, and elsewhere — effectively isolating detained individuals from their families and legal counsel,” it said.

    Immigrant advocates have taken legal action to keep detainees out of that system.

    In March, the ACLU of Ohio sued the federal government, arguing that ICE habitually violated the law and its own rules by arresting people without warrants — and without doing anything to determine whether the person was a flight risk. 

    And earlier this month, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that immigrants who had long been in the United States were entitled to a bond hearing. If such immigrants can raise bonds, they can stay out of the detention system at least temporarily. 

    The three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based appellate court upheld federal courts sitting in Michigan.

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    Source: ohiocapitaljournal.com
    Author: Marty Schladen

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  • Income inequality persists in Ohio, and a new reports says a GOP tax law will make it worse

    Income inequality persists in Ohio, and a new reports says a GOP tax law will make it worse

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    Income inequality persists in Ohio, and a new reports says a GOP tax law will make it worse

    An updated analysis of census data shows that the gap between rich and poor persists in Ohio. And a new Republican “flat” income tax now in effect will only make it worse, the analysis said.

    The richest 0.1% of Americans have seen their cumulative wealth spike by 53% between 2018 and 2025 — to $22.48 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data analyzed by the Institute for Policy Studies.

    That means the richest 343,000 Americans control 5.5 times as much of the national wealth as the 172 million who make up the bottom half of the income distribution.

    Put another way, the average person in the richest 0.1%, has as much money as 2,782 people in the bottom half. 

    As the labor and consumption of people in the bottom half make the rich ever richer, average Americans are burdened with growing costs for healthcare, childcare, groceries, housing, and now gasoline, according to various inflation measurements.

    At least a majority of Americans in the bottom half is one $15,000 expense away from poverty, Dayton data analyst Eric Pachman has found.

    New data confirm the economic trend in Ohio.

    Columbus-based Scioto Analysis this month crunched 2023 census data to update a 2022 analysis it had done of 2018 data.

    By some measures, there was improvement between 2018 and 2023 — a period that bookended the coronavirus pandemic and government programs aimed at propping up the economy by putting money in people’s pockets.

    In 2018, the bottom 50% of Ohio earners got just 13% of total state income. By 2023, that figure had risen to 18%.

    But by another measure of inequality, the Gini coefficient, things had gotten worse. Named for Italian statistician Corrado Gini, the system ranks inequality on a scale of zero to 100. Zero means that everybody has the same income and 100 means one person gets all the money — a state of perfect inequality.

    In 2018, Ohio’s Gini coefficient was 45. Five years later, it had risen to 46.6. 

    By way of comparison, the national Gini coefficient in 2023 was 48.6. So Ohio is somewhat more equal than the United States as a whole.

    To illustrate Ohio’s inequality, the latest Scioto Analysis report compared the federal poverty level to the wealth of the richest man in Ohio.

    “In 2026, the federal poverty threshold for a family of four is $41,250,” it said. “Someone making a poverty wage would need to work about 225,000 years and not spend a dime over that period to accumulate a fortune the size of Les Wexner’s.”

    In Ohio, 1.5 million people fell below the poverty threshold in 2023, according to the Ohio Housing Finance agency.

    The level of inequality varies around the state, with it being greatest in the urban centers of Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, as well as in the Appalachian region of Southeast Ohio, the report said. 

    Members of some demographic groups are more likely to be nearer the bottom of the inequality curve, with minorities and young Ohioans being overrepresented.

    “Income inequality in Ohio translates into housing inequality, where homeownership rates and housing-cost burdens vary sharply by demographic,” the report said.

    “Housing-cost burden” refers to households that spend more than 30% of their income on housing. It is often expressed in terms of the share of a given group facing that situation.

    “White Ohio residents have a 73% homeownership rate and a 21% rate of housing-cost burden,” the Scioto Analysis report said.

    “In contrast, Black Ohio residents face a 37% homeownership rate and a 42% rate of housing-cost burden. Homeownership rates are highest among older and higher-income Ohioans, and housing cost burdens disproportionately affect younger and lower-income Ohioans.”

    The report said that a negative income tax would be an effective tool for addressing Ohio’s inequality. Under such a system, the government would pay people falling below a certain income level.

    However, Ohio’s Republican leadership did something to the contrary when it adopted the flat income tax that took effect this year. By passing it, “state legislators ensured that in 2026, Ohio’s millionaires will pay the same state income tax rate as public school teachers, child care workers, firefighters or any Ohioan with income over $26,050,” Policy Matters Ohio said earlier this year.

    The Scioto Analysis report said the expected increase in inequality brought about by the flat tax can be measured.

    “… Ohio is currently moving in a more regressive direction with recent changes to the tax structure,” it said. “The transition to a flat income tax structure in 2026 will eliminate most of the equality gains from Ohio’s 2023 income taxes, increasing the Gini coefficient back to 43.6. Reverting to Ohio’s more progressive 2003 income tax structure would lower the Gini Coefficient to 43.”

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    Source: ohiocapitaljournal.com
    Author: Marty Schladen

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