ICE is utilizing mass surveillance on Americans, activists : NPR

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Getty Pictures; Court docket Listener; Collage by Danielle A. Scruggs/NPR On a night in late January, Emily was driving by her Minneapolis neighborhood doing one thing that had grow to be a part of her routine in latest weeks: patrolling for ICE.

Emily, who NPR is just figuring out by her first title as a result of she fears retribution from the federal authorities, says she adopted an ICE automobile at a secure distance right into a parking zone. "After which somebody leaned out of the passenger facet of that SUV and took an image of me and my automobile," she says.

Emily says she determined to go away at that time, however the SUV made a sudden U-turn and barreled in direction of her, braking subsequent to her driver's facet window. A feminine agent sporting a gaiter-style masks rolled down the window, leaned out — and addressed Emily by title.

"She yelled, 'Emily, Emily, we'll take you residence!' Then she checked out her cellphone and he or she recited my residence tackle," she says.

Emily says she did not acknowledge the brokers and drove away, however was so shaken that she did not drive residence, afraid the brokers may observe her there. As a substitute she went to a close-by restaurant and waited for hours.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdf%2F62%2Fe52b599f4bb38171255cbb8c32ef%2F20260227-ice-surveillance-lp-205.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdf%2F62%2Fe52b599f4bb38171255cbb8c32ef%2F20260227-ice-surveillance-lp-205.jpg" class="img" alt="Emily poses for a portrait outside of her home, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, in Minneapolis. During Operation Metro Surge, she began doing rapid response and was intimidated by federal immigration agents who followed her home." loading="lazy"/> Emily poses for a portrait exterior of her residence, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, in Minneapolis. Throughout Operation Metro Surge, she started doing fast response and was intimidated by federal immigration brokers who adopted her residence. Lexi Parra for NPR disguise caption

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Lexi Parra for NPR "I do not understand how they pulled [my information] up, if that they had one thing on me already, or in the event that they pulled my registration," she says. "Their message was not delicate, proper? They had been in impact, saying, 'We see you. We are able to get to you each time we wish to.' And it did scare me."

Emily's expertise mirrors that of many different folks throughout the nation. To know how federal brokers are utilizing varied Division of Homeland Safety surveillance instruments in actual time, NPR collected dozens of accounts — by interviews and courtroom paperwork — describing confrontations with federal immigration officers in latest months.

Activists and journalists spoke of ways they felt had been intimidating: brokers photographing their faces or license plates; calling them by title; or main them to their houses. Immigration attorneys informed NPR their shoppers had been subjected to facial recognition know-how. One ICE agent, testifying beneath oath, spoke of an app that confirmed the possible residence addresses of individuals focused for deportation.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3777x5666+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb9%2Fad%2F512fceda4830ade09a149a58eab2%2F20260227-ice-surveillance-lp-496.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3777x5666+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb9%2Fad%2F512fceda4830ade09a149a58eab2%2F20260227-ice-surveillance-lp-496.jpg" class="img" alt="Emily poses for a portrait in her home with one of her whistles used to alert to ICE presence, Friday, Feb. 27, in Minneapolis." loading="lazy"/> Emily poses for a portrait in her residence with one in every of her whistles used to alert to ICE presence, Friday, Feb. 27, in Minneapolis. Lexi Parra for NPR disguise caption

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Lexi Parra for NPR The Division of Homeland Safety, which oversees ICE and Border Patrol, is utilizing a broad net of surveillance instruments — bought as its funds has ballooned beneath this administration — to watch, apprehend and intimidate each the folks it seeks to deport and the U.S. residents important of its insurance policies, in the actual world and on-line.

Whereas different legislation enforcement companies have entry to surveillance tech, ICE has grow to be a pacesetter in these ways, based on attorneys and privateness advocates.

Surveillance of observers In Minnesota, the ACLU is suing the administration for violating the First Modification rights of protesters and observers like Emily. Within the lawsuit, greater than 30 folks gave statements beneath oath describing related encounters with immigration brokers.

Within the lawsuit, attorneys for the federal government denied that the conduct of federal brokers has violated the Structure.

DHS didn't reply to a query about why its brokers are demonstrating they know the names of observers and the place they reside, however the company did say in a press release, "DHS won't reveal legislation enforcement strategies or ways."

In Portland, Maine, Colleen Fagan was taking video of federal brokers in January throughout an immigration operation exterior an residence advanced and recorded the brokers showing to document her face and license plate with their telephones. When she requested why they had been taking her data, her video captured a masked agent responding, "'Trigger we've got a pleasant little database, and now you are thought of a home terrorist."

Final month, Fagan joined a category motion lawsuit that argues the administration is violating observers' First Modification rights in Maine as properly.

At a congressional listening to final month, appearing Director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons denied there's a database of protesters.

However federal immigration brokers are utilizing a facial recognition app referred to as Cellular Fortify and U.S. Customs and Border Safety lately signed a contract with Clearview AI, a facial recognition firm that has accessed billions of photographs of peoples' faces off the web.

Nathan Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU's Speech Privateness and Know-how Mission, says we do not but know the magnitude of how that know-how is getting used in opposition to protesters.

"A part of what's so pernicious about it's that individuals do not know what is going on on," Wessler says. "No one ought to need to surprise if they're merely being intimidated or really being subjected to an invasive biometric scan that is actually simply extremely corrosive in what is meant to be a free and open society."

In a press release to NPR, DHS harassed that Cellular Fortify, which was developed beneath the Trump administration, "doesn't entry open-source materials, scrape social media, or depend on publicly obtainable knowledge."

In instances the place federal brokers know observers' names and addresses, privateness advocates say federal brokers could also be working license plates to entry Division of Motor Car knowledge to search out out who the automobile is registered to and their residence tackle.

Elle, a South Minneapolis resident who has ceaselessly noticed ICE exercise in her neighborhood, says immigration officers have addressed her by the title of her spouse, who her automobile is registered beneath. NPR is withholding her final title as a result of she fears retaliation from the federal authorities for talking out.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4500x3001+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2b%2Fa3%2F429378c9423d9e3ba937110a0ce0%2Fjge-7352.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4500x3001+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2b%2Fa3%2F429378c9423d9e3ba937110a0ce0%2Fjge-7352.jpg" class="img" alt="Elle poses for a portrait inside her Minneapolis home, where she says she has been surveilled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during Operation Metro Surge." loading="lazy"/> Elle poses for a portrait inside her Minneapolis residence, the place she says she has been surveilled by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers throughout Operation Metro Surge. Jaida Gray Eagle for NPR disguise caption

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Jaida Gray Eagle for NPR "They'd get out their telephones after which come and stand proper in entrance of my automobile and take footage of me … and take footage of our license plate. And so they ceaselessly would come as much as my automobile and pound on the glass," Elle says.

In early January, Elle says she was following immigration officers who led her again to her residence and stopped briefly exterior. Later that day, she says she realized from her spouse and housemate that the officers returned and banged on the entrance door.

A method ICE can entry state DMV knowledge is thru Nlets, a nonprofit that facilitates knowledge sharing between legislation enforcement companies. Late final 12 months, a bunch of Democratic lawmakers referred to as on Democratic governors to chop off ICE's entry to their DMV knowledge in Nlets "in response to Donald Trump politicizing and weaponizing the company."

Minnesota is one in every of a handful of states which have taken that step, however "there are such a lot of completely different ways in which DHS can get hold of this knowledge," stated Emily Tucker, govt director on the Middle on Privateness & Know-how at Georgetown Regulation. "If states reduce off their entry by Nlets, they will go to knowledge brokers like Thomson Reuters or Lexis Nexis."

Final Might, ICE spent $5 million on a subscription with Thomson Reuters, which sells knowledge to each the private and non-private sector, to supply what ICE describes as "license plate reader knowledge to reinforce investigations for potential arrest, seizure and forfeiture."

Over the past 12 months, the Trump administration has undertaken an unprecedented challenge of aggregating Individuals' private knowledge and making extra of it accessible to ICE. A knowledge sharing settlement with Well being and Human Companies provides ICE the names, dates of beginning and residential addresses of immigrants with out authorized standing who're included in Medicaid knowledge. ICE additionally brokered an settlement with the Inside Income Service, however final week a federal choose discovered the IRS had violated federal tax legislation when it disclosed tackle data to ICE for greater than 42,000 people.

That builds on a staggering knowledge assortment effort by ICE that ramped up throughout Trump's first time period. As of 2022, ICE may find three out of 4 American adults by their utility information, and the company had scanned one in three Individuals' driver's license images, a research by Georgetown Regulation's Middle on Privateness and Know-how discovered on the time.

As well as, the usage of computerized license plate readers has exploded across the nation lately, which permits legislation enforcement to faucet into an unlimited community of cameras to go looking the actions of particular vehicles. DHS personnel have direct entry to a few of these networks, and have been in a position to make use of relationships with native legislation enforcement to entry others.

ICE additionally has instruments that may observe areas from cellphone knowledge. On Tuesday, a bunch of greater than 70 Democratic members of Congress despatched a letter to the DHS Workplace of Inspector Normal requesting an investigation into the company's use of such know-how with out acquiring a warrant.

Surveillance of Immigrants Olga Fedorova is a contract photojournalist who was working in Minneapolis through the top of the immigration crackdown earlier this 12 months. She usually adopted federal brokers across the metropolis, and says she noticed them ceaselessly scanning the faces of individuals they stopped.

"They'd take their cellphone, level the cellphone on the individual, and you may see that the individual's face is actually being scanned. Their face takes up your complete display, and it is type of pending," Fedorova says.

The app Fedorova noticed in motion was possible Cellular Fortify, which a DHS doc describes as using "CBP's facial comparability or DHS's fingerprint matching to shortly confirm topics of curiosity throughout operations."

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5267x3511+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb5%2Ff9%2Faceb27d646ebb02270d706d6fc7c%2Fgettyimages-2256946430.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5267x3511+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb5%2Ff9%2Faceb27d646ebb02270d706d6fc7c%2Fgettyimages-2256946430.jpg" class="img" alt="Border Patrol Agent scans the face of a driver as they stop and question him in the street during an Immigration Enforcement Operation in Minneapolis on Jan. 13." loading="lazy"/> Border Patrol Agent scans the face of a driver as they cease and query him on the street throughout an Immigration Enforcement Operation in Minneapolis on Jan. 13. Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu through Getty Pictures disguise caption

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Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu through Getty Pictures Fedorova says each time she noticed it used, the individual the brokers stopped seemed to be Hispanic.

One time, Fedorova photographed a person who was pulled over by brokers in his automobile and had his face scanned. She says the person confirmed the brokers a paper, however was detained anyway.

"His automobile was simply left on the road," she says.

Attorneys NPR spoke to described having shoppers whose faces had been scanned by Cellular Fortify and had been taken into custody though the app didn't establish them. Stephen Manning, an immigration legal professional and govt director of Innovation Regulation Lab in Portland, Ore., represented a farmworker who was detained after ICE brokers pulled over a van she was using in.

"They Cellular Fortified her and it was inaccurate each occasions," Manning informed NPR.

In a press release to NPR, DHS defended its accuracy, saying it operates with a "intentionally excessive matching threshold."

In a listening to within the farmworker case, an ICE agent recognized by the initials J.B. testified about one other app, referred to as ELITE made by Palantir, that he described as being just like "Google Maps" that reveals areas of people that could also be deportable and the probability they reside there.

J.B. described utilizing the app as offering "leads" to decide on the place to do an operation.

One other ICE agent with the initials D.R. gave perception into how ICE brokers use license plate data to then discover deportable folks.

D.R. testified that when brokers arrived at a Woodburn, Ore., residence advanced in October, "we started working license plates," and stated the aim was to "attempt to tie a automobile to the potential goal."

ICE began utilizing the ELITE app in June, based on a DHS doc detailing its know-how that makes use of AI.

The app attracts from DHS data programs in addition to new knowledge ICE has obtained from different companies, like residence addresses from Medicaid information. A Palantir weblog submit describes this as "restricted knowledge shared by different companies beneath an information sharing settlement allowing it for use for immigration enforcement functions."

"They're utilizing knowledge and so they're aggregating knowledge that they might in any other case want a warrant for," Manning informed NPR. "So legally it's totally scary to me as a result of it is by know-how they're bypassing the Fourth Modification."

DHS didn't reply to a request for remark in regards to the ELITE app.

Surveillance on-line DHS's net of surveillance additionally extends to social media. NPR spoke to 2 folks with lots of of 1000's of followers on Instagram who stated that they had their International Entry standing revoked after making posts important of ICE. The hyperlink between these occasions and their posts is unclear.

What's extra clear is the administration's use of administrative subpoenas, despatched to tech corporations like Google or Meta, demanding private data to unmask nameless accounts. Such subpoenas — which could be issued by federal companies with out a choose or a grand jury — have sometimes been used with tech corporations in instances involving critical offenses like little one sexual abuse materials. Now, privateness and civil rights consultants say they're getting used to threaten free speech.

"What we have seen is a rising pattern, however I believe we have solely seen the tip of the iceberg," says Steve Loney, senior supervising legal professional on the ACLU of Pennsylvania, which has represented a number of individuals who have had their on-line data subpoenaed this manner.

Loney says a sample has began to emerge in latest months.

"The sample seems to be, as quickly as folks grow to be vocal critics of what is occurring in immigration enforcement, they get an e mail from their social media firm that claims the federal government has requested your knowledge," he says.

Sherman Austin, a 42-year-old resident of Lengthy Seaside, Calif., acquired a type of emails final September from Meta, the mother or father firm of Instagram and Fb.

"I believed at first it was like a rip-off, or some sort of phishing factor occurring," he says.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4800x3200+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F4d%2Fd4%2F4edfcd1a43a2a655dba12da159f1%2F2026-02-icesurveillance11-1.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4800x3200+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F4d%2Fd4%2F4edfcd1a43a2a655dba12da159f1%2F2026-02-icesurveillance11-1.jpg" class="img" alt="Sherman Austin, whose Instagram account information was subpoenaed by DHS for posting anti-ICE content, poses for a portrait in his home on March 1." loading="lazy"/> Sherman Austin, whose Instagram account data was subpoenaed by DHS for posting anti-ICE content material, poses for a portrait in his residence on March 1. Gabriella Angotti-Jones for NPR disguise caption

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Gabriella Angotti-Jones for NPR The e-mail, which NPR reviewed, knowledgeable Austin that legislation enforcement was searching for data on his Instagram account.

"We may have to reply to this authorized request inside lower than ten (10) days if we've got an affordable perception that we're legally required to take action," the e-mail learn.

In response to a request for touch upon administrative subpoenas, Meta referred NPR to a webpage for questions on how the corporate handles knowledge requests from the federal government.

Austin runs an account referred to as @stopicenet, which recurrently posts about ICE exercise, and collaborates with different customers who do the identical. Simply days earlier than he obtained the e-mail from Meta, he shared a submit that recognized an ICE agent working in California, all by publicly obtainable data, together with a reputation tag the officer was sporting in a photograph taken in public.

After just a few emails with Meta, Austin was capable of get a closely redacted copy of the executive subpoena from DHS, which NPR additionally reviewed. The division listed the rationale as "Officer Security/Doxing."

"Which I believed was humorous, as a result of how are you going to dox somebody in the event that they've already made their data public?" Austin says.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has repeatedly warned that sharing officer data can be handled as a felony act. Typically, the act of doxing is taken into account revealing private data past an individual's title, like a house tackle, cellphone quantity or Social Safety Quantity.

Inside days, Austin requested a federal courtroom to dam the subpoena.

Austin is public about working his account, however a number of different accounts that collaborated on the submit — who additionally obtained subpoenas — are run anonymously. A type of customers additionally filed a movement to dam the subpoena, beneath the pseudonym "J. Doe".

"Once I think about what may occur to me and my household if my identification is launched to the federal government, it terrifies me," J. Doe wrote in an affidavit.

DHS withdrew each subpoenas after they had been challenged in courtroom, one thing Loney, with the ACLU of Pennsylvania, says has occurred each time he is conscious of up to now.

"The power to criticize the federal government anonymously is baked into our First Modification rights," Loney says. "Technically talking, there's nothing the federal government ought to be capable to do to them, however that does not imply the federal government's not going to strive."

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