Apps and ankle monitors that follow asylum seekers in real time, wherever they go. Databases full of personal information such as fingerprints and faces. Investigative tools that can break into locked phones and search gigabytes of emails, text messages and other files.
These are pieces of a technological arsenal at President Trump's disposal as he strives to crack down on illegal immigration and carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. To do this, his administration can draw on a stockpile of tools built up by Democrats and Republicans that is virtually unparalleled in the Western world, an analysis by The New York Times shows.
A review of nearly 15,000 contracts shows that two agencies — Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizen and Immigration Services — have spent $7.8 billion on immigration technologies from 263 companies since 2020.
The contracts, most of which were initiated under the Biden administration, include contracts for tools that can quickly prove family connections with a DNA test to check whether, for example, an adult migrant crossing the border with a minor is related. (Families are often treated differently than individuals.) Other systems compare biometrics to criminal records, alert officers to address changes, track cars with license plate readers, and rip and analyze data from phones, hard drives, and cars.
The contracts, which varied in size, covered everyday technology such as telephone services, as well as advanced tools from companies large and small. Palantir, the provider of data analysis tools and co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, has received more than $1 billion in the past four years. Venntel, a location data provider, had seven contracts with ICE between 2018 and 2022 totaling at least $330,000.
The Biden administration used many of these technologies for immigration enforcement, including investigations into drug trafficking, human smuggling, and transnational gang activity. How Mr. Trump can apply the tools is unknown, especially since the whereabouts of many immigrants are known and the government faces a shortage of agents and facilities to detain people.
But Trump has already made clear that his immigration agenda is strikingly different from that of his predecessor. This week he announced a barrage of executive actions to close the borders and expel migrants and asylum seekers.
“Any illegal entry will immediately cease and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens to the places they came from,” Trump said at his inauguration on Monday.
Tech products will almost certainly feature in these plans. Thomas Homan, the government's border czar, has held talks with tech companies about the tools available.
“They will certainly use all the tools at their disposal, including the new technology that is available to them,” said John Torres, former acting deputy secretary of ICE.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment. ICE said in a statement that it uses “various forms of technology and information to fulfill its mission while protecting privacy and civil rights and freedoms in accordance with applicable laws.”
Eric Hysen, the chief information officer for the Department of Homeland Security under President Biden, said ICE and other immigration agencies have enormous responsibilities. Many tools are designed for investigating drug traffickers and other criminals, not for tracking migrants, he said, while other technology such as license plate readers can be used to ease traffic at border crossings.
The federal government has long had an internal policy to limit how surveillance tools can be used, but those restrictions could be lifted by a new administration, Mr. Hysen added. “Those are things that can change, but they are not easy to change,” he said.
Creating an arsenal
The build-up of immigration technology dates back at least to the creation of the Homeland Security Department after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Interest in these tools fueled a boom that is expected to increase under Trump. Leaders in Europe and elsewhere are also investing in the technologies as some pursue increasingly restrictive immigration policies.
Many companies are rushing to meet demand, offering equipment to strengthen borders and services to track immigrants once they are in a country.
In the United States, beneficiaries include makers of GPS tracking devices, digital forensics tools and data brokers. Palantir and others have won contracts with ICE to store and analyze data. Thomson Reuters, Lexis Nexis and credit reporting companies provide access to databases of personal information that can help government agents find the homes, workplaces and social connections of citizens and non-citizens alike.
Clearview AI, a facial recognition company, had contracts worth nearly $9 million, according to government records. Cellebrite, an Israeli phone cracking company, sold ICE about $54 million worth of research tools. The FBI famously used Cellebrite tools in 2016 to unlock the iPhone of a mass shooter in San Bernardino, California, to aid its investigation.
Investors have taken note. The stock price of Geo Group, a private prison operator that sells monitoring technology to ICE, has more than doubled since Trump won the November election. Shares of Cellebrite have also nearly doubled in the past six months, and Palantir's shares are up nearly 80 percent.
Tom Hogan, interim CEO of Cellebrite, said the company is proud to help “keep our homeland and borders secure with our technology.” Thomson Reuters said in a statement that its technology is used by agencies to support investigations into child exploitation, human trafficking, drug smuggling and transnational gang activity. Lexis Nexis, Clearview and Palantir did not respond to requests for comment.
In an investor call in November, Geo Group Chief Operating Officer Wayne Calabrese said the company expected the “Trump administration to take a much more comprehensive approach to monitoring the millions of individuals” who were going through immigration proceedings but had not been detained. .
“We have assured ICE of our ability to scale quickly,” he said.
In a statement accompanying this article, Geo Group, based in Boca Raton, Florida, said it looks forward to supporting the Trump administration “as it moves rapidly to implement its stated plans and objectives for securing the nation's borders and enforcement of immigration laws. ”
Locations to follow
One technology that could be used immediately in mass deportations could identify the exact location of immigrants, experts say.
About 180,000 undocumented immigrants wear an ankle bracelet with a GPS tracking device, or use an app called SmartLink that requires them to register their whereabouts at least once a day. The technology was created by a subsidiary of Geo Group and is used in a program called Alternatives to Detention. The program began in 2004 and expanded during the Biden administration to digitally monitor people instead of holding them in detention centers.
Location data collected through the program has been used in at least one ICE raid, according to a court document reviewed by The Times. In August 2019, during the first Trump administration, government agents tracked the location of a woman who was being tracked as part of the program. That helped agents obtain a search warrant for a chicken processing plant in Mississippi, where raids across the state resulted in the detention of about 680 immigrants of uncertain legal status.
Sejal Zota, legal director of Just Futures Law, a group that opposes government surveillance programs, said the Trump administration would likely have to rely on digital surveillance tools because it would be impossible to physically target large numbers of individuals without legal status to hold.
“While this administration wants to scale up detention, and I believe it will find ways to do that, it will take time,” she said. “I think this program will continue to be important as a method to surveil and control people.”
A wealth of data
The Trump administration also has access to private databases of biometrics, addresses and criminal records. According to a 2022 study from Georgetown University, officers can obtain data on utility bills for about three-quarters of Americans and driver's licenses for a third of Americans.
These tools could potentially be used to track people who are high on ICE's priority list, such as people with criminal histories or people who don't show up for immigration court hearings. Investigators can use the databases to find a person's car information and then use license plate readers to determine their location.
During the first Trump administration, ICE accessed driver's license data through private companies in states such as Oregon and Washington, even after the state tried to cut off access to the information to the federal government, the Georgetown investigation said.
Mr. Torres, the former ICE official, said this information was crucial for agents to find people.
“We know people are giving false addresses,” he said. Agents can “use big data sharing to triangulate their location based on habits.”
This has led to concerns about privacy. “Damage to privacy may seem theoretical on paper, but for vulnerable people on the front lines it is never theoretical,” said Justin Sherman, a leading researcher at Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology.
During the Biden administration, ICE also purchased software from Babel Street, a technology company that collects data from thousands of publicly available websites and other sources. Its services can assess people as potential security risks based on data. Babel Street did not respond to requests for comment. ICE has also paid a dozen companies for software that can be used to retrieve passcodes, retrieve deleted files and analyze email inboxes.
Some immigration experts have wondered how much of this technology the Trump administration could use. Some tools are most relevant for targeted investigations, not widespread deportations, said Dave Maass, research director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group.
“What they buy and what is actually useful can be completely different things,” Mr. Maass said. Either way, he said, tech companies “will make a lot of money.”
Methodology
The New York Times analyzed government contracting data from usaspending.gov. The data covered Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services spending from 2020 to the present. The Times filtered the data by technology-related contracts, using recipient information and contract description. The Times looked at the money spent, not just pledged, to calculate total spending and the total number of tech companies.
