ICE Goes Digital in Migrant Tracking Push

Written by Parriva — October 15, 2025
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Instagram profiles could soon be used to justify deportations. US Immigration authorities are seeking to hire dozens of analysts to gather personal information from posts, comments and messages on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, X and other social media platforms, which 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 technology companies, seeks to expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) ability to monitor people through their social media to levels that threaten to violate constitutional rights.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a solicitation seeking private companies to deploy at least 30 analysts to ICE monitoring centers in Williston, Vermont, near Canada, and in Santa Ana, California. The request is for a round-the-clock surveillance operation using the latest technology, including artificial intelligence, to support efforts to increase deportations. The government is requesting “analysis and lead generation services” that “fulfill ICE’s law enforcement mission” to locate those who “pose a threat to national security.”

The information collected will come from commercial and law enforcement databases, as well as other publicly accessible sources, including open media and social media platforms, whose monitoring will be integrated into ICE’s workflow. The documents also indicate that AI will increase the efficiency of identifying individuals.

The initiative is part of the Trump administration’s historic immigration offensive, which has promised mass deportations and set daily arrest quotas, according to numerous reports, up to 3,000 people per day, a figure that has not been reached to date. 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. Furthermore, it has received billions of dollars — between $70 billion and $170 billion, depending on what is included in the calculation — from the Trump tax reform passed last summer, which establishes a $5.9 billion allocation for “new technology.” By way of comparison, the FBI has a total of just over $10 billion annually.

With that money already at its disposal, ICE has ramped up its large-scale surveillance efforts, including on social media, taking advantage of the massive reach offered by private technology companies. This has raised concerns among civil rights and immigrant rights advocates about the risks this practice poses to freedom of expression, privacy, and democracy.

“Almost anything people post on social media can potentially be used against them. Any post in a WhatsApp group or on a Facebook page can put them on ICE’s radar,” explains Alberto Fox-Cahn, attorney and founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), a civil rights advocacy group focused on government surveillance.

The way ICE is using social media to monitor people “undermines democracy,” he argues. “They’re using a lot of tools to access information that people think is private.” According to the expert, accounts restricted to approved followers only offer a false sense of privacy because “ICE and other law enforcement agencies have created vast networks of fake accounts to harvest 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,” he added.

A WhatsApp spokesperson said that the app is built to be private by design, with end-to-end encryption “so that no one outside the chat, not even WhatsApp or Meta, can read, listen to, or share your personal messages.” The spokesperson also said that WhatApp does “not keep logs of who everyone is messaging or calling.”

DHS did not respond to a request for comment on this report. Neither did ICE.

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