ICE Swiftly Expands Its Sprawling Surveillance Apparatus

The U.S. federal agency in charge of detaining and deporting immigrants is poised to expand to unprecedented levels the sprawling surveillance apparatus left by the Biden administration.

Within days of President Donald Trump’s victory in November, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) posted several notices on the federal procurement website seeking contractors to provide technological tools to enlarge, transform and modernize the agency’s capabilities to track, monitor and surveil noncitizens.

ICE, an agency with a long record of rights violations, torture and abuse in its detention facilities and deportation practices, now has the full support and power of the Trump administration, which on the campaign trail promised to carry out mass deportations. Just days into the Trump administration, ICE has carried out immigration raids nationwide and rescinded previous guidance regarding sensitive locations, allowing the agency to carry out immigration enforcement at schools, hospitals and places of worship. 

These actions come on the heels of the passage of the Laken Riley Act, which allows ICE to deport people accused of committing minor crimes such as shoplifting, even if they are not found guilty, violating the constitutional right to due process. The bill was approved with the support of Democratic lawmakers, including 10 senators and 48 representatives.  

Animated by Trump’s nativist zeal, ICE’s likely dramatic expansion of surveillance is also fueled by the interests of private contractors, incentivized to ensnare as many people as possible to increase their profits.

The growing anti-immigrant movement in the U.S. has led many to consider how civil society can protect immigrants by exposing and fighting back against an extensive surveillance apparatus now led by a president who portrays immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country and activists as “the enemy from within.”

“We have tools to respond and resist,” said Laura Rivera, senior attorney at Just Futures Law, a project advocating for immigrant rights and justice, which, alongside the grassroots nonprofit Mijente, has been at the forefront of exposing the immigration surveillance apparatus. “Our work over the coming months and years is to continue to grow our capacity to resist.” 

The escalation of data surveillance

On Nov. 15, 2024, ICE posted a request for information from contractors on the federal procurement website to “augment its efforts towards ERO modernization and organizational transformation.” ERO stands for Enforcement Removal Operations, the division within ICE responsible for detaining and deporting noncitizens. ICE asked for “support for law enforcement systems programs, analysis and operations.” The agency outlined one particularly alarming ability it needs: “predictive analytics and modeling” to collect data and improve forecasting methodologies and scenario-planning capabilities.

The request for information appears to have been looking for data brokers, many of which use artificial intelligence to “predict” crimes. According to the 2024 report “Automating Deportation” by Just Futures Law and Mijente, Al tools are tainted with discriminatory police practices because they are often based on historical crime data provided by law enforcement. 

Take the data broker LexisNexis, a subsidiary of the British corporation RELX, which is key to ICE’s deportation machine. Its Accurint tool provides more than 11,000 ICE agents access to analytics that “automate” decisions about vetting, screening and targeting people for deportation — the vast majority of whom are people of color. ICE’s records suggest that LexisNexis conducts large-scale surveillance for civil immigration arrests. 

Another division within ICE, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), is also looking to enhance its surveillance capabilities. On Nov. 14, HSI updated its original request for information, published in July, asking for a preliminary estimate to continue “the process of transforming its Information Technology investment approach and processes for acquiring and delivering enhanced investigative capabilities” to 11,000 agents.

HSI conducts criminal investigations on transnational crimes and threats. During the first Trump administration, HSI was also the division through which ICE conducted immigration raids targeting undocumented people at their workplaces.

Among the requirements for the technology, HSI looked to “conduct unified searching across multiple systems both internal and external to ICE, primarily regarding subject-related information” and to produce “surveillance reports.”

Advocates are especially concerned about the increasing use of data brokers, as they help federal agencies bypass privacy safeguards and violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals from unreasonable government searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment has historically extended to noncitizens. Still, ICE agents have violated this right. It is also likely that the Trump administration will challenge this protection, as Trump has implied that constitutional rights do not apply to immigrants. 

The role of data brokers in immigration enforcement is growing, said Jesse Franzblau, a senior policy analyst at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC). “This poses a lot of new challenges, particularly because information through data brokers such as LexisNexis is often used in a way that circumvents state and local restrictions on sharing information between the police and ICE.”

With an ICE contract worth $22 million expiring in 2028, LexisNexis Risk Solutions proffers alleged predictions before “crime and fraud can materialize.” Its tools not only track immigrants, but also ensnare U.S. residents. LexisNexis boasts generating reports on 282 million unique identities tied to individuals, and its dossiers reveal Social Security numbers and other personal information, including addresses, phone numbers, current and previous workplaces, social media accounts, data from phone apps, and similar identifying information for relatives and associates.

Advocates have for years called on Congress and the federal government to rein in the $200 billion data broker industry. In December, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which prevents fraudulent and deceptive business practices, responded to pressure and ruled against one of ICE’s current contractors, Venntel. A subsidiary of Gravy Analytics, Venntel was accused of selling the precise locations of millions of people, allowing ICE agents to track them everywhere: church, medical appointments, school, protests and their homes. Without prior authorization, Venntel collects this data from apps installed on people’s phones.

“Governments have long relied on private citizens for work that would be impractical or illegal for law enforcement,” said FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya in a statement on the Venntel ruling, adding that just because the government employs these services does not make them lawful. The FTC ordered Venntel to stop selling people’s precise location data.

The ruling, which could have ripple effects in the data broker industry, came after the American Civil Liberties Union uncovered Venntel’s activities through documents obtained in 2022 by suing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the Freedom of Information Act.

Separately, Just Futures Law, Mijente, Organized Communities Against Deportation and other immigration activists sued LexisNexis, demanding that the corporation stop its unauthorized data collection. Filed in 2022, the lawsuit uncovered valuable information, including ICE’s ability to access public records, state and local record management systems, and computer-aided dispatch data “from over 1,500 agencies nationwide, all in one search.”

Suing corporations “could be crucial to revealing exactly how a particular technology works, its scope, how many people it’s impacting, and also as a way to fight back against it,” said Rivera of Justice Futures Law. “As an investigation tool, that’s really important.”

Revelations regarding data brokers’ operations also preceded the rulemaking process the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau initiated in December. The agency protects consumers from deceptive or abusive practices and until recently, had been attempting to limit the sale of personal data. CFPB’s efforts, however, are likely stalled. In November, tech billionaire Elon Musk, who will lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, posted on his social media platform X: “Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies.”

Even with a hostile administration, campaigns targeting corporations can be effective. In 2021, the #NoTechforICE campaign was able to pressure the data broker Thomson Reuters to terminate its collaboration with ICE to track and deport undocumented people, as it had done since 2015. One of Thomson Reuters’ divisions is the Reuters news agency, one of the largest newswire services in the world that routinely covers immigration, which advocates have asserted for years is a conflict of interest.  

Local residents can also pressure their jurisdictions to ban data brokers from accessing their information. According to Franzblau, this could force local authorities to “place restrictions on the type of information they share with LexisNexis.”

The explosion of e-carceration

The number of immigrants electronically monitored with an ankle shackle, wrist band or the smartphone app SmartLINK skyrocketed during the Biden administration, from 86,860 in 2021 to 187,193 in December 2024, according to data compiled by the Syracuse University research center TRAC. These devices — amounting to what advocates call “e-carceration” — function on GPS geolocation and voice or facial recognition.

ICE agents and contractors can constantly monitor an individual’s precise location. They can also take over the functions of a phone installed with SmartLINK, causing deep stress to people forced to utilize the app. Ankle shackles also provoke additional anxiety, in part by stigmatizing users.

These “alternatives to detention,” as they are officially called, are managed by the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), slated to be consolidated into Release and Reporting Management, according to an ICE request for information from 2023. The goal was to “engage with a large portion of the 5.7 million individuals on the current non-detained docket,” which are people in immigration proceedings outside the detention system.

The plan was seemingly shelved. However as Wired first reported, on Nov. 6 — the same day Trump was declared the winner of the election — ICE posted a request for information for contractors with “suitably large intake rooms” and with the “ability to perform mass-scale intakes as required by unforeseeable events.” By the end of fiscal year 2024 in September, 7.6 million individuals comprised the non-detained docket. If ICE’s intention is to revive its 2023 plans, a massive expansion of e-carceration may soon occur.

According to the Nov. 6 notice, the contractor would also be required to incorporate information from Hurricane Score, an AI algorithm that calculates the risk of a monitored individual absconding. The algorithm is inconsistent with federal policies governing the responsible use of AI, particularly when making “life-impacting decisions,” according to a letter sent by 140 civil rights organizations to former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas requesting a ban on Hurricane Score and other AI tools.

Asked by Prism about ICE’s intention to substantially boost its surveillance arsenal, agency spokesperson Mike Alvarez said in an email that, like other federal agencies, ICE “maintains various contracts for a wide range of services.”

E-carceration is swelling. Still, the number of individuals currently wearing alternative-to-detention devices could be higher. As TRAC has noted, ICE figures are not reliable.

The opacity has been key for ICE’s surveillance to spread with little accountability and oversight. NIJC and other groups have pressured Congress to mandate ICE to comply with transparency requirements, especially those related to ISAP. 

“There’s been advancements on the transparency front that largely come from congressional reporting requirements for ICE to release information,” Franzblau said, adding that this data can help push members of Congress to carry out stronger oversight of ICE’s programs.

One company has overwhelmingly benefited from the e-carceration of immigrants: BI Inc., which has a $2.2 billion contract with ICE set to expire in July. The company is the agency’s sole provider of electronic monitoring devices. BI is also a subsidiary of the private prison corporation GEO Group, one of the world’s largest private prison companies that contracts with ICE to operate more than a dozen detention facilities nationwide. GEO Group donated $3.4 million to 2024 political campaigns, the largest recipient being the super PAC Make America Great Again. GEO Group also spent $1.03 million in lobbying last year, directing a third, or $340,000, at “immigration enforcement and alternatives to detention.”

To shed further light on ISAP, Just Futures Law, Mijente and Community Justice Exchange sued ICE for information on the data the agency collects and how it is used. After receiving contradictory information, the groups concluded in 2023 that “ICE’s public assurances about protecting the data and privacy of people under ISAP cannot be trusted.”

The illegality of facial recognition

ICE has operated facial recognition software since 2020, when it first contracted Clearview AI, whose practices are illegal in the European Union because of its violation of the General Data Protection Regulation that governs how personal data can be collected, stored and used. Clearview AI is known for scraping personal images posted on social media and the internet without authorization. The images are then matched to a person’s name and compared to information from law enforcement records to identify individuals suspected of committing a crime.

ICE’s $2.3 million contract with Clearview AI ended last September. It is unclear if the agency will renew the contract or if it’s still using the software. Clearview AI has been sued several times in U.S. courts for “illegal practices” related to surveillance activities. While battling the lawsuits, Clearview AI also focused on derailing the bill that would regulate its activities and those of data brokers.

It’s also worth noting that Clearview AI lobbied on the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act, which would close the loophole allowing the government to buy information extracted from smartphones and websites. If it became law, ICE would have to obtain a warrant to acquire that data. The House of Representatives approved the bill in April, but it did not make it to the Senate floor.

“Politicians and government officials have been not just complaisant, but active partners of corporations to increase surveillance,” said Danny Cendejas, campaign specialist at MediaJustice, a grassroots organization fighting for justice in the digital age. “We recognize that corporations have a lot of influence on both parties and that neither party is really for us.”  

Cendejas pointed out that a handful of Democrats, such as representatives Greg Casar of Texas, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, have been staunch allies of immigrants. However, he said the brunt of the fight against the growing surveillance apparatus has to rely on civil society.

“We need to continue to demand accountability and build solidarity with other communities also impacted by surveillance,” he said.