The Tech Tools of ICE

A recent report, The Tech Behind ICE:

Oligarchs, Immigration Enforcement and the Threat to Democracy, (Mijente, Just Futures Law, Surveillance Resistance Lab, 2026), provides a sobering look into surveillance tools being developed with vast implications for our privacy and daily lives. But it’s not just that sophisticated tech tools developed for immigration enforcement are making their way into broader use; how they’re deployed rests increasingly in the hands of the very same tech oligarchs who benefit from their purchase by the US Government.

This article is the first in a series on tech tools, used by ICE, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and other government entities, that are creeping into broader use to surveil activists, journalists, and communities. I’ll describe which tools are in use, who is surveilling, who is being surveilled, and how this surveillance violates our rights. I’ll look at the revolving door and conflicts of interest between tech company leadership, tech sector leadership, and government leadership. There’s no question about it; the fox is definitely guarding the henhouse. Finally, I’ll explore the strategies needed to build the movement to dislodge the surveillance state.

The events of September 11th, 2001 provided the pretext for the surveillance state to take root with minimal oversight or consideration of its implications. Congress passed the USA Patriot Act 45 days later, which provided for increased surveillance of both citizens and non-citizen immigrants. The following year, the Department of Homeland Security was created. Where-as the Patriot Act institutionalized mass surveillance, the Department of Homeland Security created the infrastructure to support surveillance.

While some provisions of the Patriot Act have sunsetted, many others remain in force. For example, Section 412, which became part of the amended Immigration and Nationality Act, allows for the indefinite, mandatory detention of non-citizens if the Attorney General believes that “reasonable grounds” exist to believe that the person’s activities endanger national security. Section 411, which broadens grounds for deportation, remains active law. Section 411 also provides cover to label activists as terrorists.

Against this background of demonization of immigrants and their allies, high tech companies consolidated their profitability by contracting with the US Government to produce the tools of surveillance. Predictably, they then have sought new markets for them. The technologies that monitor immigrants are being repurposed to surveil activists, journalists, event attendees, and whole communities, all in the name of security. Together, these tools form an increasingly interconnected web of data about our individual movements, habits, relationships, finances, priorities, and plans.

That information is gathered without our knowledge or consent, eroding constitutional guardrails. It is used to develop the predictive capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), which are then applied to decide who we are, what we have done, and what we will do in the future, often erroneously. The breadth and depth of this information gathering have accelerated to an un-precedented pace in the second Trump administration.

In order to develop counterstrategies, we first need to understand the tools and how they’re deployed. The tools fall into ten categories:

1. Cell phone and computer spying software and devices

2. Cell phone tracking

3. Data analytics

4. Data brokers

5. Automated license plate readers (ALPR) surveillance and driver surveil-lance

6. Drones

7. Detention and deportation tracking

8. Bounty hunters

9. Facial recognition and street-level tracking

10. Web scraping and social media surveillance

We’ll start by looking at how ICE uses our cell phones to gather information about us. ICE has numerous contracts for remotely hacking into phones, reading messages, accessing files and listening to conversations. For example, ICE had a contract with Paragon Solutions, an Israeli company, whose Graphite spyware hacked into the phones of journalists and activists. Another software, GrayKey, unlocks passwords and allows ICE and CBP officers to access photos, deleted files, and location.

ICE also has numerous tools to track cell phone location. For example, “stingrays” mimic cell phone towers, gathering location data of every phone in proximity. They can then identify their target. CellHawk monitors activities of specific targets, flagging phones entering a specific area, monitoring how they relate to other phones in the area, and sending texts and emails to enforcement officials.

GeoFence collects phone data on who is in a given geographic area through a Fourth Amendment loophole that allows phone and other location data to be purchased by the federal government from commercial data brokers. Originally used to zero in on suspects of unknown identity, its use is now contested on Fourth Amendment grounds, namely that it constitutes unreasonable search and seizure and that an individual has a right to privacy related to location. This case made it to the Supreme Court, which ruled 6 - 3 to return the case to the lower court for whether the search was reasonable. The case is now pending.

TechOps Specialty Vehicles are specially outfitted vehicles that serve as mobile units to analyze that data, conduct surveillance, and coordinate missions.

ICE and CBP also use so-called administrative subpoenas to request data from social media companies, internet providers and cell phone carriers. These companies assert that they own our data. However, these requests frequently violate first amendment protections. One concerning example relates to an ICE request to Reddit, Discord, and other platforms; ICE sought data for those who posted online about the surge in ICE enforcement operations in Los Angeles. CBP has even purchased data from makers of software that determines which ads pop up on our devices as we interact with our phones. In next month’s Retiree Advocate, we’ll look at the staggering reach of other tech tools that are growing the surveillance state and abridging the rights of immigrants and their allies.