WASHINGTON, DC — The Department of Homeland Security is searching for information on crime committed by Haitian immigrants, many of whom received Temporary Protection Status after the 2010 earthquake that killed around 300,000 and devastated the country, according to the Associated Press. Requesting criminal data for a specific group of immigrants from a single country is an unusual move, and such data is not typically used to assess protected status.

In an exclusive report, the AP quotes emails from Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, the head of policy and strategy at United States Citizen and Immigration Services, that were sent to her staff requesting the crime data along with information about which public benefits Haitian immigrants with the protected status have obtained. Kovarik did not receive much of a substantial response to the requests, the AP found, because the government's record systems are not designed to track such data. Employees of USCIS told the AP that it was "almost impossible" to provide information about the public benefits the immigrants received because people with this protected status are not eligible for most benefits."

President Trump has said that he wants to focus on expelling undocumented immigrants from the country who have committed crimes. Maria Odom, who served as Citizenship and Immigration Services ombudsman under President Obama, said that it was puzzling that the agency would look for crime data on a particular protected group of immigrants when individual criminals are already denied protected status.