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A self-reported birthplace field on a criminal intake form carries no immigration status information.
Canyon County, Idaho's misdemeanor probation department used exactly that field to compile a list of foreign-born probationers handed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to more than 140 emails covering May through July 2026, obtained by InvestigateWest.
The emails show how the data pipeline assembled itself.
In early June, department director Jeff Breach emailed his staff asking them to identify offenders they believed were in the country illegally, because ICE had requested such a list.
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