President Donald Trump made countering migration one of his major issues during last year’s presidential campaign, promising an extraordinary number of removals. In his first eight months in office, that commitment turned into around 350,000 deportations, a total that includes removals by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, around 200,000, Customs and Border Protection, more than 132,000, and nearly 18,000 self-deportations, according to CNN.
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ICE has assumed center stage in Trump’s mass deportation initiative, raiding residences, workplaces, and public parks in search of undocumented migrants. To support its efforts, Immigration and Customs Enforcement possesses several technologies capable of identifying and monitoring individuals and neighborhoods. Here is a summary of some of the systems that ICE has in its digital arsenal.
Clearview AI Facial Recognition
Clearview AI is arguably the most recognized facial identification company today. For years, the organization vowed to be able to detect any face by searching through a vast database of photographs it had collected from the web. On Monday, 404 Media revealed that ICE has finalized an agreement with the company to assist its law enforcement branch.
Homeland Security Investigations HSI) with the capacity to identify victims and perpetrators in child sexual abuse incidents and attacks against law enforcement personnel. According to a government procurement repository, the agreement signed last week is valued at $3.75 million. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held other agreements with Clearview AI in the previous couple of years.
In September 2024, the agency obtained forensic software from the company, a deal worth $1.1 million. The prior year, ICE compensated Clearview AI almost $800,000 for facial recognition enterprise permissions. Clearview AI did not respond to a request for a statement.
Paragon Phone Spyware
In September 2024, ICE finalized a contract worth $2 million with Israeli spyware developer Paragon Solutions. Almost immediately, the Biden administration issued a stop-work order, placing the agreement under review to ensure it conformed with an executive directive on the government’s use of commercial spyware.
Due to that directive, for nearly a year, the contract remained pending. Then, last week, the Trump administration revoked the stop-work order, effectively reactivating the agreement. Currently, it is unclear what the status of Paragon’s connection with Immigration and Customs Enforcement is in practice. The records entry from last week stated that the contract with Paragon is for a fully configured proprietary solution, including license, equipment, warranty, upkeep, and instruction.
Practically speaking, unless the installation and training were completed last year, it may require some time for ICE to have Paragon’s system operational. It is also uncertain if the spyware will be employed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or HSI, an agency whose inquiries are not restricted to migration, but also cover online child sexual abuse, human smuggling, financial deception, and more.
Paragon Corporate Changes
Paragon has long attempted to present itself as an ethical and responsible spyware developer, and now must determine if it is moral to collaborate with Trump’s ICE. Much has occurred for Paragon in the past year. In December, American private equity giant AE Industrial acquired Paragon, intending to merge it with cybersecurity organization Red Lattice, according to Israeli technology news site Calcalist.
In a sign that the merger may have occurred, when TechCrunch contacted Paragon regarding the reactivation of the ICE contract last week, we were redirected to Red Lattice’s new vice president of marketing and communications, Jennifer Iras. Red Lattice’s Iras did not respond to a request for comment for this article, nor for last week’s article.
In recent months, Paragon became involved in a spyware controversy in Italy, where the government was accused of monitoring journalists and migration activists. In reaction, Paragon severed ties with Italy’s intelligence offices.
LexisNexis Legal And Public Records Databases
For years, ICE has utilized the legal research and public records data broker LexisNexis to aid its inquiries. In 2022, two non-profits obtained documents via Freedom of Information Act requests, revealing that ICE conducted more than 1.2 million searches over seven months using a tool called Accurint Virtual Crime Center. ICE employed the tool to examine the background information of migrants.
A year later, The Intercept disclosed that ICE was leveraging LexisNexis to detect suspicious behavior and investigate migrants before they even committed offenses, a program critics said enabled mass surveillance. According to public documents, LexisNexis presently provides ICE with a law enforcement investigative database subscription, LEIDS, which permits access to public records and commercial information to support criminal investigations.
This year, ICE paid $4.7 million to subscribe to the service. LexisNexis spokesperson Jennifer Richman told TechCrunch that ICE has used the company’s product data and analytics tools for decades, across multiple administrations.
Our commitment is to facilitate responsible and ethical use of data, fully complying with laws and regulations, and protecting all residents of the United States, said Richman, who added that LexisNexis collaborates with over 7,500 federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies nationwide to enhance public safety and security.
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Surveillance Giant Palantir
Data analytics and monitoring technology leader Palantir has signed multiple contracts with ICE in the past year. The largest contract, valued at $18.5 million from September 2024, is for a database system named Investigative Case Management or ICM. The ICM agreement dates back to 2022, when Palantir signed a $95.9 million deal.
The Peter Thiel-founded firm’s relationship with ICE extends to the early 2010s. Earlier this year, 404 Media, which reported extensively on the technology powering Trump’s deportation efforts and particularly Palantir’s collaboration with ICE, disclosed details of how the ICM system operates.
The tech news site stated it viewed a recent version of the database, which allows ICE to filter individuals based on immigration status, physical traits, criminal connections, location data, and more. 404 Media cited a source familiar with the database who said it contains table upon table of data and can generate reports showing, for example, people on specific visa types entering through certain ports, originating from certain countries, and having particular hair colors or hundreds of data points.
The tool and Palantir’s connection with Immigration and Customs Enforcement were controversial enough that insiders leaked to 404 Media an internal wiki justifying working with Trump’s ICE. Palantir is also developing a system called Immigrations, according to a contract valued at $30 million revealed by Business Insider. Immigration is intended to optimize the selection and capture processes of undocumented individuals, provide near real-time visibility into self-deportations, and monitor individuals overstaying visas, according to a document initially reported by Wired.