Watching Everyone: The Expanding Surveillance Power of ICE
By Teagan Phillips
The past 15 months, we have watched as neighbors, friends, and family are snatched off the street by men in masks. As promised in his campaign, the Trump administration has dedicated a plethora of government resources to terrorizing neighborhoods through violent immigration enforcement tactics. The 2025 budget for the Department of Homeland Security which houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has tripled to $28.7 billion. This budget ranks the agency as the 14th highest-funded military in the world. That puts them right between Ukraine and Israel. So where is all the money in the bloated budget going? A lot of it is going towards surveillance technology.
Surveillance technology comprises a wide variety of digital devices and software systems used to monitor people’s data, movements, and other personal information. Things like CCTV, drones, and cookies on websites might come to mind when we hear those words but there are many other devices, apps and programs collecting information. One piece of surveillance technology used by ICE includes a tool called ELITE, Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement. This tool uses AI to create a list of addresses from Medicaid and other government databases to populate a map of potentially undocumented immigrants. Additionally, ICE has spent almost 4 million dollars on facial recognition technology, which includes an app called Mobile Fortify and Clearview AI. Mobile Fortify runs facial recognition against millions of photos.
In tandem with Mobile Fortify, ICE is also using Clearview AI, this contract gives ICE access to over 50 billion facial images and this is one of the “most comprehensive facial recognition databases available.” Another 5 million dollars of ICE’s budget was spent on Tangles, a tool developed by Cobwebs Technologies, a company with ties to Israel’s cyber-intelligence community. Tangles goes through social media posts, mobile contact, location, event sign-ups, and overall activity online to create “life profiles” on people of interest.
The surveillance technology doesn’t stop there and it doesn’t stop with ICE. Local law can sign 287g contracts agreements which deputizes and designates specific officers to perform limited immigration functions, such as interviewing detainees to figure out their immigration status. In December of 2024 there were 135 agreements between ICE and local law enforcement, as of January 2026 there are now more than 1,168 agreements across 39 states. Every county surrounding Hamilton County has a 287g contract. When collaborating with local agencies, ICE is able to request local jails to hold individuals for up to 48 beyond their release date so agents are able to determine their immigration status. In addition, local law enforcement data can be shared to identify any undocumented immigrants in custody.
Another tool that local police use is a network of automated license plate readers. Law enforcement use these systems to track stolen vehicles, suspects, or missing persons. If local agencies agree to work with ICE they are able to monitor this data, target drivers, and check immigration status during minor traffic violations or regular traffic stops. Homeland Security and ICE searched nearly 900,000 state drivers licenses and other motor vehicle data over the past year. ICE can also tap into similar systems run by the Drug Enforcement Administration and other private companies. We’re seeing the same technology used to enforce laws on trafficking drugs being used to target undocumented and documented immigrants.
Surveillance doesn’t stop with Immigrants
The threat of surveillance doesn’t only affect immigrants. ICE has access to everyone’s data, immigrants and US citizens alike, and that data is being stored in Microsoft’s cloud. The data stored on this cloud has tripled in the last six months. They’re using a range of tools and AI products to analyze the data in the cloud. It includes facial recognition, finger prints, identification records, cell phone location data, and social media monitoring. To amass this much data, that means ICE is purchasing personal and sensitive information from private companies. Data that we often give freely to companies when we opt in to using their apps, phones, browser systems, and computers.
We have already seen the consequences of this data access. Protesters are being singled out and intimidated by ICE agents who are finding their home addresses and showing up there to incite fear and to demonstrate their power. One of these specific examples is Daniel Woo, who was monitoring federal agents gathered in a supermarket parking lot. Mr. Woo followed the SUV, checking in with fellow monitors to alert targeted groups. Mr. Woo followed the SUV for around 40 minutes, and at a certain point he felt he knew where the SUV was heading. Soon enough the SUV reached his neighborhood and pulled in front of his house. This is not a lone account of ICE agents attempting to intimidate protesters or monitors, as there have been dozens of others from Minnesota citizens.
But this didn’t start with ICE. Surveillance technology within local and state police departments has been ramping up while also remaining a mystery to many of us. With little understanding of how vast these technologies are and with a lack of regulation and accountability measures, people’s rights and safety are at risk. These tools become another way to racially profile and target specific groups in our cities. The same state violence and systemic injustices that happen in our criminal justice system are enabling ICE and vice versa.
Does This Create Safety?
The general discourse pushed by those in power centers a narrative of crime, danger and safety. The constant rhetoric of immigrants committing crimes and creating unsafe cities and neighborhoods increases unneeded fear within communities and dehumanizes immigrants. Less than 14 percent of the almost 400,000 immigrants arrested under Trump’s first year back in office had convictions or charges for violent criminal offenses. Data indicates that less than two percent of individuals arrested by ICE were convicted of homicide or sexual assault. Conversely, U.S. citizens are two times as likely to commit a violent crime than undocumented immigrants. This begs us to ask what true safety looks like. We say often that peace is the presence of justice. It is children with full bellies, people getting the medical care they need, equitable development, clean air and drinking water, access to education for everyone, and so much more.
In contrast, there are a number of ways that ICE is destroying safety. The current conditions in immigration detention facilities are inhumane with people describing medical neglect, isolation, lack of basic needs, and unsanitary spaces. The same conditions we often see in our prisons. In Trump’s first 12 months of his second term there have been 32 deaths in ICE custody. In addition to physically not making the country safer with increased deportation it creates a deepening distrust of the government. Communities feel unheard and unsafe in their own homes. Because Trump rescinded the 2011 Sensitive Locations Memorandum it only worsened the fear of deportation. This memorandum required special circumstances to search or arrest individuals in sensitive locations. This was put in place to insure people wouldn’t stop seeking medical care, practicing their faith, or sending their children to school. Rescinding this memorandum means children stop going to school, people do not get the medical care they need, and they face living with constant stress and fear.
Violence is so pervasive within our culture that we believe we need massive militaries, walls and weapons to keep “bad” people out. Yet those things can never truly provide safer communities. We put so much time and effort into responding to crime or people being here “illegally” rather than providing the conditions that we know create thriving communities in the first place. Our resources, rather than funding DHS and ICE, would be better invested in education, healthcare, and the environment. Surveillance technology purports to be another layer of protection. But these tools lead only to more fear and separation when we need connection and love to protect our communities the most.
RESOURCES
Resist and Unsubscribe – Simple actions you can take today to resist ICE and the regime.
Just Futures Law – Learn more about the connection between surveillance and how that leads to over policing in our neighborhoods.
ACLU – Surveillance Technology – Learn more about the threat to your rights and others.
Cut off the Spigot – Check out this post for technology and app alternatives.