U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has signed a $30 million contract with Palantir Technologies to build a new surveillance system called ImmigrationOS, aimed at identifying, tracking, and facilitating the deportation of millions of undocumented migrants.
The prototype is scheduled for rollout in September and will integrate multiple government and private databases to support an aggressive enforcement agenda under the Trump administration.
The contract, awarded without competitive bidding, was justified by ICE as necessary to counter "extraordinary threats" from transnational criminal organizations as USA Today points out. It also aligns with a broader federal shift toward tech-driven governance led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency initially run by Elon Musk.
Palantir, founded by billionaire and GOP donor Peter Thiel, who also has close ties to Musk and Vice President JD Vance, already provides data services for Homeland Security Investigations.
According to ICE, ImmigrationOS will enable agents to more efficiently target individuals accused of violent crimes, gang affiliation and visa overstays. The system will also track those who "self-deport," allowing authorities to focus on individuals who remain in the U.S. The Trump administration has set a goal of deporting 1 million people annually.
The program collects and analyzes biographic, biometric, and behavioral data, allowing ICE to sort individuals by dozens of attributes, including country of origin, visa status, and physical characteristics like eye color, tattoos, and vehicle license plates.
Civil liberties experts warn that the tool's design could enable surveillance far beyond its stated scope. Cooper Quintin, a technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, raised concerns about the potential misuse of the system to USA Today:
"What they have built is a really, really capable engine for analyzing big data, linking it together and picking out parts of it. That gives you the ability to collate this data on somebody and go looking for a reason to prosecute them. Even if you think you're safe for now, you might not be safe for long"
Ricard Martínez, director of the Privacy and Digital Transformation Chair at the University of Valencia, called the program "a methodology of total social control" in a recent report by El País, adding that it risks stripping migrants of dignity and basic legal protections. Amnesty International's Likhita Banerji echoed those concerns, warning the system could entrench discrimination and violate international human rights norms.
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