ICE’s Digital Dragnet: How Immigration Enforcement Built a Surveillance Network That Allows Eavesdropping at a Level Not Seen in Decades

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has constructed one of the most expansive domestic surveillance networks in American law enforcement, using facial recognition technology, license plate readers, and commercially purchased cellphone location data to track millions of illegal immigrants. But the dragnet could also be surveilling millions of American citizens who have never crossed a border illegally or faced deportation proceedings.Recent revelations about the scope of ICE’s technological capabilities have alarmed some civil liberties advocates who claim that the agency has effectively built a warrantless surveillance infrastructure that would make even the most privacy-conscious Americans uncomfortable.Unlike traditional law enforcement agencies, which typically need to show probable cause and submit to judicial oversight in order to conduct such sweeping surveillance, ICE is believed to be taking advantage of gaps in privacy laws and the public-private data marketplace to amass powerful investigative tools. Concerns about the scope of this surveillance have reached Capitol Hill, where lawmakers face a February 13 deadline to agree to new controls on ICE before Department of Homeland Security funding expires. Following two fatal shootings by immigration officers in Minneapolis last month, Democrats are demanding reforms, including body cameras, judicial warrants for home entries, and a ban on agents covering their faces. President Trump has expressed support for body cameras, but his administration has been less supportive of requiring more warrants or forcing immigration agents – who are subjected to jeering, threats and doxxing, especially in Minneapolis — to remove their masks. Meanwhile, under pressure from Democratic Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, Joseph Cuffari, confirmed Thursday that his office has initiated an audit titled “DHS’ Security of Biometric Data and Personally Identifiable Information” to examine potential data privacy abuses and the misuse of sensitive personal information.Faces in the DatabaseICE’s use of facial recognition technology has expanded dramatically in recent years, with the agency now accessing databases containing images of more than 200 million people. The agency has contracts with multiple states to scan driver’s license databases, allowing ICE agents to run facial recognition searches without those states’ residents ever knowing their images were examined by federal immigration authorities.The agency does not need a warrant to conduct these searches. Documents obtained through public records requests show that ICE conducted facial recognition searches at an increasing rate, with agents in some field offices conducting hundreds of searches per month.“Using this tech in the field, as ICE does with its Mobile Fortify app, is inherently risky as it creates variable conditions for scans and less opportunity for much-needed vetting,” Deputy Director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, Jake Laperruque, tells the Sun. “And treating matches as a definitive ID is highly irresponsible, ignoring clear consensus on improper practices for the tech.”The Mobile Fortify app, developed by NEC Corporation and first revealed through leaked internal emails in June 2025, allows ICE agents to photograph individuals using government-issued smartphones and compare those images against databases containing over 200 million biometric records. According to a lawsuit brought by Illinois and Chicago, DHS has used the app in the field more than 100,000 times since its launch.Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, Patrick Eddington, points to the broader implications. “What we do know about ICE’s Mobile Fortify and related technologies is that if they are not currently in use by the FBI, DEA, ATF, etc., the only obstacle to those agencies getting the technology is money,” Mr. Eddington tells the Sun.Several states, including California, Vermont, and New York, have moved to restrict ICE’s access to their motor vehicle databases following public outcry. Yet the agency maintains access in dozens of other jurisdictions.License to TrackBeyond facial recognition, ICE has gained access to vast networks of automated license plate readers — cameras mounted on police cars, toll booths, parking structures, and street poles that photograph every passing vehicle and store the location data. Private companies collect this information and sell access to law enforcement agencies, creating a time-stamped record of where vehicles have traveled.The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that license plate readers nationwide collect data on the movements of hundreds of millions of Americans daily, with that information retained for months or years and accessible to ICE without a warrant. The technology is largely invisible to the public, with no notification system, no opt-out mechanism, and no requirement to purge the data after a specific period.Also of note is ICE’s purchase of commercial cellphone location data; information harvested from smartphone apps and sold by data brokers to anyone willing to pay. This data creates a minute-by-minute record of where phones travel, accurate to within a few meters.ICE has spent millions of dollars purchasing this data from brokers, allowing agents to track individuals without obtaining a warrant or even establishing probable cause.“ICE shouldn’t be able to use Americans’ tax dollars to buy their way around judicial approval and warrant rules,” Mr. Laperruque insists.This practice has faced scrutiny from lawmakers who note that the Supreme Court held in Carpenter v. United States that law enforcement generally needs a warrant to obtain cellphone location data from carriers. ICE and other agencies, however, have argued that data purchased from commercial brokers falls outside this requirement.“The third-party doctrine is meant to apply to conscious choices to hand over private information, but data that’s funnelled through brokers often stems from technical processes for apps and is sold based on clauses hidden within terms of service. It’s worlds apart from voluntarily sharing information that you don’t want kept private,” Mr. Laperruque contends.In essence, he argues that when someone shares their phone number with their cellular carrier to make calls, that’s a conscious choice. But when a weather app silently collects location data through technical processes and sells it to data brokers without users truly understanding the buried consent in lengthy terms of service agreements, that’s fundamentally different. Yet ICE claims both scenarios allow warrantless surveillance under the same legal doctrine.Mr. Eddington notes that “the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Carpenter case was relatively narrow, focusing on CSLI data because of its privacy-invasive nature and that the telecom companies generate and store the users’ info with actual voluntary consent.”In 2024, the FCC fined several major telecoms for selling customer location data, highlighting what Mr. Eddington describes as the need for “Congress to pass something along the lines of the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act to prevent Fourth Amendment end-runs by law enforcement agencies.”The Government Accountability Office has also questioned whether ICE’s interpretation is legally sound, and several federal judges have expressed skepticism about warrantless purchases of commercial location data.A Surveillance State by ProxyCritics contend that ICE is exploiting legal ambiguities to conduct monitoring that would be unconstitutional if done directly.“To a major extent, federal law enforcement’s surveillance infrastructure and capabilities are not publicly known beyond what’s been revealed via investigative journalism, Congressional hearings, or government whistleblowers,” Mr. Eddington says.The long-term implications extend beyond immigration enforcement. The infrastructure ICE has built, experts say, demonstrates how federal agencies can leverage the private sector’s data collection apparatus to circumvent constitutional protections.“ICE’s surveillance capabilities are already daunting, and the recent jump in its funding from the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is going to amplify the risks these surveillance systems pose dramatically,” Mr. Laperruque continues.“ICE has already exploited data purchases of sensitive information, like cellphone location records, biometric surveillance, automated license plate readers, and social media monitoring. With a mass increase in funding, we’re now seeing the scale of those surveillance powers ramped up while guardrails and oversight are being ripped down.”The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July 2025, provided ICE with $75 billion in supplemental funding available through September 2029, essentially tripling the agency’s budget and making it the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency.Both experts advocate for legislative reforms to address these concerns. Mr. Laperruque calls for Congress to “close the Data Broker Loophole and stop law enforcement from buying their way around warrant requirements,” noting that the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act passed the House 219-199 in April 2024 but stalled in the Senate.Mr. Eddington, meanwhile, calls for broader police reform. “What we’ve seen with ICE’s conduct is reflective of a larger need for federal police reform, oversight, and accountability mechanisms,” he underscores. “Besides enactment of ‘data broker loophole’ closure legislation, we also need the original Supreme Court decisions in Bivens to be codified so victims of police violence have civil recourse for damages.”In simple terms, the experts are pushing for two main reforms: First, closing the legal loophole that allows law enforcement to buy personal data from private brokers without a warrant, data they would otherwise need court approval to obtain. Second, ensuring that people have a clear legal path to sue for damages in civil court, restoring rights eroded by court decisions over the years.The inspector general’s newly launched audit aims to determine how DHS components collect, store, use and share sensitive personal data, and whether those activities comply with the law. In their letter requesting the investigation, Senators Warner and Kaine raised concerns that DHS may be “collecting and using sensitive data about U.S. citizens and non-citizens in ways that circumvent civil liberties protections, including those guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, while operating with insufficient oversight.”ICE officials maintain that these surveillance technologies are essential law enforcement tools. The agency states its mission is to “protect America from the cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety,” executing this through enforcement of more than 400 federal statutes. According to ICE, the technologies support investigations into terrorism, transnational criminal organizations, narcotics smuggling, human trafficking, gang activity, and child exploitation. Yet, as ICE’s deportation operations expand, the agency’s surveillance capabilities ensure that its reach extends far beyond those physically detained. The digital dragnet captures families, friends, employers, and community members — anyone whose face appears in a database, whose car passes a license plate reader, or whose phone runs the wrong app.“ICE shouldn’t be able to use Americans’ tax dollars to buy their way around judicial approval and warrant rules,” Mr. Laperruque concludes.

ICE’s Digital Dragnet: How Immigration Enforcement Built a Surveillance Network That Allows Eavesdropping at a Level Not Seen in Decades

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