ICE is detaining a record 44,000 people

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is detaining an average of 44,631 people daily, The Daily Beast reported Sunday evening, citing information reported to Congress by the agency and confirmed by a congressional office. This figure is not classified but also has not been previously publicized.

The 44,631 daily average dates to Oct. 20, and is about 2,500 higher than the average daily detention rate ICE reported just over a month earlier, on Sept. 15. This time last year, the rate was 39,322 detentions daily. Congress has only funded daily detentions up to 40,520 people, declining the Trump administration's funding request for up to 51,000 detention spots.

"From a moral perspective, 44,000 is an astonishing number of people to be separated from their families and communities and held within a system that [the Department of Homeland Security's] own inspector general has criticized for abusive conditions," Mary Small of the Detention Watch Network, an immigration advocacy group, told The Daily Beast.

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ICE detention rates skyrocketed in the final two years of the George W. Bush administration and reached then-record heights during former President Barack Obama's tenure. From about 20,000 daily detentions in the early 2000s, the number topped 30,000 in 2007 and has never slipped below it since.