ICE is at the center of a vast and growing US biometric surveillance capability

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has quietly emerged as the operational nucleus of a vast, fragmented, and increasingly automated biometric surveillance architecture across the United States. And unlike traditional centralized surveillance programs managed directly by federal agencies, ICE’s strategy has been to embed itself within a growing constellation of federal, state, local, and commercial systems, leveraging their reach, data, and capabilities without assuming formal ownership and avoiding oversight.

This distributed model has allowed ICE to sidestep the kind of political scrutiny, legal restrictions, and institutional oversight that is typically associated with direct federal deployment of sensitive technologies like facial recognition, automated license plate readers (ALPRs), and large-scale biometric data mining.

The big picture that emerges is sobering. ICE has engineered a multi-pronged enforcement infrastructure that has stitched together federal, state, local, and private systems. It’s a biometric reach that extends from fingerprints in county jails to facial scans in city streets, license plates in suburban neighborhoods, and income declarations in federal tax filings. It operates in the shadows of legal ambiguity and political neglect, capitalizing on the fragmentation of American governance and the unchecked expansion of commercial surveillance.

This model is not just a challenge to privacy; it is also a challenge to democratic accountability. As surveillance tools become more ubiquitous and as federal agencies like ICE find new ways to piggyback on local and private systems, the boundaries between public safety, immigration control, and mass surveillance are rapidly eroding. The question is no longer whether ICE is building a surveillance state, but whether it has already built one without anyone noticing.

Just as disturbing is the evidence that political ideology is often a key factor in local law enforcement’s willingness to assist ICE, though it is also shaped by practical, institutional, and cultural dynamics. There is credible evidence suggesting that political ideology plays a significant role in whether and how local law enforcement cooperates with ICE.

Research shows that sheriffs and local law enforcement officials are more likely to collaborate with ICE in jurisdictions that lean conservative or where local officials themselves are ideologically aligned with stricter immigration enforcement. A study published in the American Political Science Review found that partisan affiliation, particularly among elected sheriffs, strongly correlates with the decision to enter into agreements like 287(g), which deputize local officers to perform federal immigration functions.

The 287(g) program is a partnership initiative under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows ICE to delegate certain immigration enforcement powers to state and local law enforcement agencies. Through a Memorandum of Agreement selected local or state officers are trained and authorized to perform specific immigration enforcement functions, such as identifying, processing, and detaining individuals suspected of being in the U.S. unlawfully.

In addition to ideology, institutional incentives and relationships with federal agencies also matter. Local law enforcement agencies may assist ICE in hopes of receiving federal funding, equipment, or favorable collaboration in other policing areas. Even where no formal agreement exists, informal cooperation is often driven by shared mission language, cultural alignment, or political pressure from local constituents and officials who support strict immigration enforcement policies

One of the clearest recent examples of ICE’s stealth strategy has been its access to nationwide networks of AI-enabled camera systems which are largely operated by local police departments and commercial partners. According to 404 Media and corroborated by related disclosures, ICE has used these systems to conduct over 4,000 camera lookups.

These AI-enhanced systems are marketed for functions such as suspect identification, vehicle tracking, and automated alerts to law enforcement. In practice, however, ICE has often gained access to this data either through informal requests to local police departments or by having local law enforcement officers perform searches on ICE’s behalf.  These interactions frequently leave little to no legal documentation or paper trail, creating an accountability void in which oversight is difficult and public knowledge is limited. The result is a surveillance capability that is far greater than the sum of its visible parts.

This practice connects directly to ICE’s broader biometric toolkit, which includes a longstanding partnership with Clearview AI, a facial recognition company that built its database by scraping over 60 billion images from public websites. Clearview has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and regulatory complaints, particularly under Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, for collecting facial data without consent.

Despite these challenges, ICE has maintained a relationship with the company since at least 2019, using its platform for rapid identification tasks. Clearview’s service enables ICE to match photos from disparate sources against a massive database in real time, further expanding the agency’s reach into public and private life.

Although facial recognition is perhaps the most visible element of ICE’s biometric surveillance apparatus, its reach extends deeply into other realms as well. The agency has tapped into automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems through companies like Flock Safety, Inc., which operates ALPR cameras in over 5,000 communities across 42 states. These cameras capture and store metadata associated with vehicle movements, including timestamps, license plate numbers, and geolocation data.

ICE does not hold a direct contract with Flock, but it has successfully obtained access to the data through informal requests to local police departments that utilize Flock’s systems. This method of access, which has reportedly occurred over 4,000 times, effectively bypasses sanctuary policies and local laws that restrict cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. By asking local police officers to query the system on its behalf, ICE has found a way to circumvent regulatory firewalls while maintaining plausible deniability.

The implications of these practices extend far beyond immigration enforcement. They represent a structural shift in how surveillance is conducted in the United States, characterized by a diffuse network of public and private entities loosely coordinated through data flows and informal cooperation. This system is made more powerful by its opacity. ICE’s access to these tools often flies under the radar because there is no single system or program to scrutinize, only a web of interactions, each seemingly benign on its own, but collectively formidable in scope and power.

In addition to its exploitation of local and commercial surveillance infrastructures, ICE remains deeply embedded in the federal biometric ecosystem. It is a core participant in what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called the “Secure Communities” program. Now called the Criminal Alien Program (CAP), it connects local jail booking systems with federal biometric databases. This linkage allows ICE to automatically compare fingerprints submitted during arrests against records in DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System and its successor system, the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) system.

HART is designed to eventually hold hundreds of millions of biometric records, including fingerprints, facial images, iris scans, and even behavioral identifiers. Through Secure Communities, ICE receives alerts when an individual booked at a local facility matches a record in federal immigration databases. As of 2025, the program operates in over 650 jurisdictions across 32 states. “CAP focuses on the identification, arrest, and removal of Incarcerated aliens at federal, state, and local levels, as well as at-large criminal aliens,” ICE says.

ICE also has a documented agreement with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that enables it to update and retrieve fingerprint results, further strengthening its cross-referencing capabilities. These formalized channels give ICE a reliable mechanism for identifying individuals with potential immigration violations during routine law enforcement interactions, often without the knowledge or consent of the individuals involved.

But perhaps the most consequential – and least transparent – aspect of ICE’s surveillance capabilities stem from its integration with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). According to reports, DOGE has facilitated ICE’s access to data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA).

This convergence of financial and identity records with immigration enforcement systems marks a dramatic expansion of federal surveillance power. Through IRS data, ICE can identify individuals who pay taxes using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs), a method frequently used by undocumented workers. Although ITINs are legal and serve to bring workers into compliance with tax law, their use can now be repurposed to identify and locate individuals for deportation.

Access to SSA records compounds this risk by giving ICE insights into address history, employment verification, and even citizenship or legal status claims. In some reported cases, the Trump administration, operating through DOGE, attempted to label certain immigrants as deceased in the SSA’s “death master file” to cut off access to public benefits and credit systems.

The fusion of SSA and IRS data with ICE’s biometric surveillance ecosystem effectively creates a virtual 360-degree profile of an individual’s identity, financial footprint, and physical presence. It turns databases designed for public service delivery into tools for punitive enforcement, often without public consent, legal transparency, or Congressional oversight.

This de facto centralization of surveillance, achieved without a centralized mandate or legislative authorization, exemplifies the risks inherent in the unregulated growth of biometric and AI-enhanced systems. By embedding itself into local surveillance infrastructure, leveraging private vendors, and accessing sensitive federal datasets, ICE has created a resilient enforcement matrix that is extraordinarily difficult to monitor, challenge, or dismantle.

AI, meanwhile, plays an increasingly central role in this evolving landscape. According to DHS’s own AI use case inventory, ICE deploys AI to enhance public safety and enforce immigration laws through predictive analytics, data mining, and facial recognition, among other applications.

AI enables ICE to sift through vast amounts of biometric, financial, and identity data rapidly, surfacing potential targets and flagging individuals based on patterns of behavior or data anomalies. The risks of such systems are well-documented – algorithmic bias, false positives, and the inability to audit black-box decision-making processes all raise serious civil liberties concerns.

Civil rights groups and privacy advocates have sounded the alarm over this growing surveillance state, calling for legislative interventions and stronger oversight mechanisms. They argue that local governments must audit data-sharing arrangements and enforce stricter transparency requirements on both public agencies and private vendors. Some lawmakers have begun to take notice, with calls for investigations into ICE’s access to taxpayer records and SSA data growing louder. However, the complexity and diffusion of the system make it difficult to address through conventional regulatory channels.

Article Topics

biometric database  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  border security  |  Clearview AI  |  facial recognition  |  ICE  |  immigration  |  license plate readers  |  U.S. Government  |  video surveillance