Chair Encarnación asks how audit identified key issues

How do you feel that the audit identified those key issues to be reviewed?

That's a great question.

It really was a combination of a few different things, data analysis, external oversight, and I want to really center our stakeholder engagement and conversations we had with advocates.

You know, we've analyzed through the IRC city data on interactions with federal immigration authorities, including detainer requests and in-person incidents at shelters and other facilities.

We looked at and reviewed historic reporting data that we know revealed significant gaps and previously unreported incidents.

We also considered the findings of the Department of Investigation's report on DOC and NYPD, which you referenced in your opening, and looked to get input from advocates, journalists, and other stakeholders.

Agencies were, as we mentioned, were also asked to report and, you know, over-report, be over-inclusive in their reporting of any interaction that they had with federal authorities, which is how we uncovered many of these interactions.

And then finally, members of our IRC team also conducted site visits and visiting shelters directly to assess the vulnerabilities and, you know, and any other protocols.