President Donald Trump made opposing immigration one of his hallmark concerns during the previous presidential campaign, pledging an extraordinary number of deportations. In his initial eight months in power, that vow translated into approximately 350,000 expulsions.
A statistic that incorporates deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, about 200,000, Customs and Border Protection, more than 132,000, and nearly 18,000 voluntary self-deportations, according to CNN.
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ICE’s Central Role in Trump’s Deportation Program
ICE has taken central importance in Trump’s extensive deportation program, storming residences, job sites, and public spaces seeking undocumented migrants. To strengthen its activities, ICE possesses at its command numerous technologies capable of detecting and tracking individuals and neighborhoods. Here is a review of several technologies that ICE maintains within its digital collection.
Clearview AI and ICE’s Facial Recognition Contracts
Clearview AI is possibly the most renowned facial identification enterprise today. For years, the corporation pledged it could recognize any person by searching across a massive database of pictures it collected from the internet.
On Monday, 404 Media disclosed that ICE has secured a contract with the firm to support its enforcement division, Homeland Security Investigations HSI, with abilities for detecting victims and perpetrators in child exploitation incidents and attacks against law enforcement authorities.
Based on a government purchasing record, the agreement signed last week amounts to $3.75 million. ICE has arranged additional contracts with Clearview AI in recent years. In September 2024, the agency procured forensic applications from the firm, a purchase worth $1.1 million. The prior year, ICE paid Clearview AI nearly $800,000 for facial recognition enterprise permissions.
Paragon Solutions’ Surveillance Deal and Its Uncertainty
In September 2024, ICE arranged a deal valued at $2 million with Israeli surveillance developer Paragon Solutions. Almost instantly, the Biden administration issued a stop-work directive, placing the contract under assessment to verify it aligned with an executive order about government utilization of commercial spyware.
Due to that directive, for nearly a year, the deal stayed unresolved. Then, last week, the Trump administration removed the stop-work restriction, essentially restoring the contract.
Currently, it remains uncertain what exactly the position of Paragon’s cooperation with ICE truly is. The document entry from last week indicated that the contract with Paragon is for a completely prepared exclusive solution, including licenses, equipment, assurance, upkeep, and instruction.
Paragon’s Reputation and Ownership Changes
In practical terms, unless the equipment setup and instruction were finished last year, it may require additional time before ICE operates Paragon’s platform effectively. It is also uncertain whether the spyware will be implemented by ICE or HSI, an office whose probes are not restricted to immigration, but additionally cover online child exploitation, human trafficking, financial corruption, and further.
Paragon has long attempted to present itself as an ethical and dependable spyware producer, and now must determine whether it is principled to cooperate with Trump’s ICE. A great deal has transformed for Paragon throughout the past year. In December, American equity powerhouse AE Industrial obtained Paragon, planning to merge it alongside cybersecurity corporation Red Lattice, according to Israeli technology publication Calcalist.
Indicating that the merger perhaps occurred, when TechCrunch contacted Paragon for feedback on the reactivation of the ICE contract last week, they were redirected to Red Lattice’s newly appointed vice president of communications, Jennifer Iras. Red Lattice’s Iras declined to reply to a request for comment regarding this report, nor the earlier report.
Spyware Controversy in Italy
In recent months, Paragon has been trapped in a spyware controversy in Italy, where the administration was charged with spying on reporters and migrant activists. In retaliation, Paragon ended its associations with Italy’s intelligence organizations.
ICE’s Use of LexisNexis Data Services
For years, ICE has relied upon the legal research and information broker LexisNexis to reinforce its probes. In 2022, two advocacy groups obtained records via Freedom of Information Act petitions, showing that ICE executed more than 1.2 million checks across seven months using a resource called Accurint Virtual Crime Center. ICE utilized the tool for verifying the background data of immigrants.
A year afterward, The Intercept disclosed that ICE was utilizing LexisNexis to identify suspicious conduct and investigate migrants even before they perpetrated a crime, a system that one critic said permitted mass monitoring. According to open documents, LexisNexis presently delivers ICE with a law enforcement investigative data subscription, LEIDS, which allows entry to public records and private information supporting criminal investigations.
This year, ICE has allocated $4.7 million to continue subscribing to the service. LexisNexis representative Jennifer Richman informed TechCrunch that ICE has employed the company’s offerings, data, and analytics instruments for decades, across numerous administrations.
She stated their dedication is to support the proper and ethical handling of data, fully consistent with laws and policies, and to safeguard all inhabitants of the United States. Richman also mentioned that LexisNexis collaborates with over 7,500 federal, state, local, tribal, and regional entities within the country to advance societal safety and security.
Palantir’s Investigative Case Management (ICM) System
Data evaluation and surveillance powerhouse Palantir has confirmed numerous contracts with ICE over the past year. The largest agreement, priced at $18.5 million from September 2024, is for a database framework labeled Investigative Case Management or ICM. The contract for ICM dates back to 2022, when Palantir secured a $95.9 million arrangement with ICE. The Peter Thiel-founded organization’s affiliation with ICE reaches back to the early 2010s.
Earlier this year, 404 Media, which has thoroughly covered the technology driving Trump’s deportation schemes, and specifically Palantir’s alliance with ICE, unveiled details regarding how the ICM system functions. The news outlet reported observing a recent version of the database, which permits ICE to filter people according to immigration conditions, bodily characteristics, criminal ties, geographic information, and more.
404 Media cited a source knowledgeable about the database, who explained it comprises layers upon layers of data and that it can generate reports revealing, for instance, individuals holding a particular type of visa who entered the nation through a specific port of entry, who arrived from a certain country, and who possess a particular hair shade or any other from hundreds of identifiers.
Internal Debate Over Palantir’s Role in Trump’s ICE
The tool, alongside Palantir’s ties with ICE, was contentious enough that insiders inside the organization disclosed to 404 Media an internal wiki where Palantir defended cooperating with Trump’s ICE.
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