DHS Immigration Data Wiz Calls It Quits

The man behind the federal government’s comprehensive immigration data recently resigned from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and his former colleagues believe it’s part of a push to reduce transparency.

Last month, Marc Rosenblum announced his departure on LinkedIn after serving for more than a decade as the department’s head statistician.

Trump administration officials blocked Rosenblum, who said he was leaving an “often hostile work environment,” from publishing monthly data, The Atlantic reported on Monday. The data that remains ends in 2024.

Trump officials continue to tout that they’re running “the most transparent Administration in history,” but the lack of timely immigration data has led even conservative immigration hawks to push back.

The Oversight Project, a nonprofit group advocating for a “mass deportation,” sued the Trump administration for failing to respond to outstanding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for deportation data and has even floated that the public numbers are being inflated.

DHS says “more than 3 million illegal aliens have left” the country during “Trump’s first year back in office.” The department estimates that 2.2 million of them self-deported.

According to agency statistics, ICE carried out roughly 300,000 deportations in the first year of Trump’s latest term, falling short of his lofty goal of carrying out one million removals each year.

Rosenblum formed the Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) in 2023 with the support of officials across the political spectrum to provide more comprehensive numbers.

“I’m sad to suspend my career in public service and leave my amazing team,” Rosenblum wrote in his LinkedIn post. “My OHSS co-workers are outstanding career federal civil servants. They are smart, mission-focused experts who produce high-quality results in a challenging and often hostile work environment.”

“I’ve partnered with hundreds of other fabulous feds over the last decade. I worked side by side with strong, mission-driven contract teams,” he wrote.

The ex-DHS official went on to express concern with the Trump administration’s positions.

“But it will come as no surprise that I’m thrilled to end my relationship with the current administration. Between the war on immigrants, the war on feds, and the war on facts (not to mention the crazy war in Iran and the brazen corruption), I just need a change,” he said.

Two of Rosenblum’s former colleagues at DHS who served under the Biden administration told The Daily Wire that the statistician was devoted to the facts no matter how unfavorable they were to the president and his agenda. One of the ex-officials also said Rosenblum’s comprehensive data helped DHS identify areas where policy changes were necessary.

“If you don’t have a commitment to actually looking at data, then at the end of the day, you’re just gonna lose credibility, your decisions are gonna be based on just wins, and you’re not gonna be able to be successful. And if we’re gonna be actually transparent and accountable to the taxpayers you need data,” the ex-fed said.

The source continued: “And Marc was one of those people whose commitment was just to the work. I didn’t know what his political inclinations were at all the entire time I worked with him because many times the data that he wanted to publish didn’t look great for us (during the Biden administration).”

Another former Biden DHS official echoed that Rosenblum never showed any partisan leanings and was solely “a data guy.”

“He was able to get all the data points across the entire department and put them in an easy to understand platform. He can pull CBP [Customs and Border Protection] data to show that most of the fentanyl that was arriving into this country was coming from the northern border and talk about Coast Guard actions in the high seas, like apprehending Cubans and Haitians,” the ex-official said.

“He would also be able to determine which populations were being targeted by ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations] and what rate. How many individual screenings at airports across the country. Just generally did the job of pulling all the data for department leaders, the White House, the press, and the public,” they added.

But it’s not just former Biden administration officials throwing support behind Rosenblum. His LinkedIn post also garnered a comment from Trump’s recently departed acting ICE director, Todd Lyons, who wrote that “it was great to work with you” while wishing him “luck with the next chapter!”

Rosenblum declined to comment on the reasoning for his departure.

In a statement to The Daily Wire, a DHS spokesperson said “people are always welcome to their opinion,” adding, “that doesn’t make it right or factual.”

“We will not comment on personal decisions,” the spokesperson said.