His Instagram profile could be used to justify his deportation. United States immigration authorities are looking to hire dozens of analysts to collect personal information through publications, comments and messages on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, X and other social networks that will be used as leads and intelligence to carry out raids and operations against immigrants. The initiative, part of a series of recent contracts with , seeks to expand the ability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to monitor people through their social networks to levels that threaten to violate constitutional rights.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking for private companies that can place at least 30 analysts in ICE surveillance centers in Williston (Vermont), in the northeast, near Canada, and in the Californian city of Santa Ana. The assignment is a constant surveillance operation, 24 hours a day, using the latest technology, including artificial intelligence, to support efforts to increase deportations. The Government requests “analysis and lead generation services” that “comply with ICE’s law enforcement mission” to locate those who “
The information collected will come “from commercial and police databases, as well as other publicly accessible sources, including open media and social media platforms,” whose surveillance will be integrated into ICE’s “targeting” workflow. The documents also indicate that AI will increase efficiency in identifying individuals.
The initiative is part of the historic immigration offensive of the Donald Trump Administration, which has promised mass deportations and has established daily arrest quotas of, according to numerous reports, up to 3,000 detentions per day. Even so, as a result of Trump’s immigration policy, ICE has become the most powerful agency in the federal government, with access to data from other agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Health. In addition,—between 70,000 and 170,000 million, depending on what is included in the calculation—from the Trump tax reform approved last summer, which establishes an allocation of 5,900 million for “new technology.” As a point of comparison, the FBI has a total of just over $10 billion annually.
With that money now at its disposal, ICE has boosted its large-scale surveillance effort, taking advantage of the massive reach offered by private technology companies. This has put civil and immigrant rights defenders on alert due to the risks that this practice presents to freedom of expression, privacy and democracy.
“Almost anything people post on social media can potentially be used against them. Any post on a WhatsApp group or Facebook page can put them on ICE’s radar,” explains Alberto Fox-Cahn, attorney and founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, which advocates for civil rights with a focus on government surveillance.
“The way ICE is using social media to surveil people,” he maintains. “They are using a lot of tools to access information that people think is private.” According to the expert, accounts restricted only to approved followers offer a false expectation of privacy because “ICE and other law enforcement agencies have created huge networks of fake accounts to collect information.”
“Many people use WhatsApp, which is encrypted, without realizing that information about every communication they have is available to ICE and other law enforcement agencies,” Fox-Cahn denounces. A WhatsApp spokesperson told this newspaper that the platform is designed to be private in nature, with default encryption “so that no one outside the chatnot even WhatsApp or Meta, can read, listen to or share” personal messages, and they do not keep records of who each person is writing to or calling.
Neither DHS nor ICE responded to a request for comment for this report.
The growing use of technology in the deportation campaign
The tender for social media monitoring services is just the latest in a series of contracts with technology companies aimed at expanding ICE’s surveillance capabilities. This includes a $30 million deal with the company Palantir, co-founded by the controversial far-right billionaire and former partner of Elon Musk, to develop ImmigrationOS, an application that uses AI to identify and locate people in an irregular immigration situation. Palantir has won more than $900 million in government contracts since Trump began his second term, according to The New York Times.
Studies indicate that the contracts show an increase in the use of technology, artificial intelligence and social network analysis to strengthen ICE surveillance infrastructure throughout the country. One from the immigrant defense organization Mijente titled Who is behind ICE? The technology and data companies driving deportations Already in 2023, it warned that ICE is increasingly using cloud infrastructure, and data analysis and social media programs provided by private providers. The report detailed how social media feeds a scaffolding that expands ICE’s ability to generate leads.
In another more recent one, from August of this year, the American Immigration Council highlights the need to supervise with independent audits these systems driven by artificial intelligence that can make errors that have serious consequences. People can be detained, lose their legal status, or even end up improperly deported, the immigrant advocacy organization warns, saying that “some Palantir engineers have expressed concern about the ethical burden” of designing these tools. “They argue that building systems capable of mass surveillance, especially without adequate oversight, crosses a dangerous line from protecting the civil liberties that underpin democracy to openly undermining them,” he notes.
Fox-Cahn, from STOP, highlights “the invasiveness” of the technology and the risk it can pose for migrants. “We know that people are going to be systematically targeted for their political beliefs, for their religion, for things that are supposed to be protected by our Constitution,” he says.
Ismael Labrador, an immigration lawyer based in Miami, says that several clients have expressed concern to him about his social media posts. After a Miami nightclub raid, a patron asked him if it was possible that a club photo he posted on Facebook could have alerted authorities. Labrador says he warns his asylum-seeking clients, whom the government is “persecuting,” to be careful what they post because “any comment that is not aligned with the principles [de esta Administración] can be misinterpreted.”
Thomas Kennedy, of the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), says that government contractors monitoring social media “are going to be looking to see if someone has posted a political opinion, something hyperbolic” to do what they call a “fishing expedition,” a broad and unfounded search without specific motives.
While immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, are pushed into the shadows, the shadow of immigration authorities also now looms over cyberspace.
