ICE Plans 24/7 Social Media Monitoring Program For Deportation Operations

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced plans to increase its social media surveillance through 29 permanent private contractors who will conduct continuous online monitoring.

According to WIRED, federal contracting documents show that the agency aims to establish a multiyear program that would turn social media posts into intelligence for deportation raids, and arrests.

The program will be based out of two ICE targeting centers — the National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center in Williston, Vermont, and the Pacific Enforcement Response Center in Santa Ana, California. Each facility will be staffed with private analysts who will “scour Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms, converting posts and profiles into fresh leads for enforcement raids,” as reported by WIRED.

The planning documents show Vermont will use 12 contractors but California will keep 16 staff members working in shifts at the site. The analysts will gather open-source intelligence from VKontakte, and other foreign and mainstream platforms, through public posts and photos and messages.

The investigators will access LexisNexis Accurint and Thomson Reuters CLEAR commercial databases to build comprehensive profiles through the integration of social media information with property data and phone and utility records.

The system needs to produce results right away because it must process critical cases within thirty minutes while completing less critical tasks before the end of a typical workday.

ICE plans to use artificial intelligence in their operations and will spend more than $1 million each year on advanced surveillance technology.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Privacy Information Center consider ICE’s expanding surveillance system to pose an important threat to personal privacy and individual freedoms.

The tools present a risk of being used to monitor immigrants and journalists and activists which could merge security functions with political surveillance.