The office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) published requirement for contracting outside agencies to help the government authorities disinter and update data on unauthorized immigrants.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has requested data related services from private agencies to process data on 500,000 unauthorized immigrants per month.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Targeting Operations Division (TOD) has a requirement to obtain mission-critical commercial subscription data services to conduct customized analysis, screening, and monitoring of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) priority criminal alien information,” the advertisement read.
Published on the Federal Business Opportunities website earlier this month, the advertisement read, “The TOD will provide targeting information for the provider to set up in a continuous monitoring and alert system to track 500,000 identities per month for specified new data, arrests, and activities.”
Reportedly, the new provisions indicate that the immigration authorities are employing a more robust and technologically advanced system to target and monitor undocumented immigrants.
“It’s what we’ve been fearing: that the government would be expanding its efforts to vacuum up data in order to monitor and find and deport undocumented immigrants,” said Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Reveal reported.
Another expert in immigration arena, Lena Graber, from Immigrant Legal Resource Center, described the advertisement “really creepy.”
“In an era where … people have a hard time distinguishing between the corporations collecting (data) for marketing purposes and the government collecting it for more Orwellian purposes, this blends those two really dramatically,” she said.
However, when the website contacted ICE on how they are going to use the new system, the agency refused to reveal information to the media. “We don’t have anything for you at this time beyond what has already been made public in the (request for information),” spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said in an email to Reveal News.
Generally, ICE officers prefer to arrests undocumented immigrants while they are in jail. Although ICE can access local jail bookings through Secure Communities program that was reinstated by Trump in January, the local sanctuary policies sometimes hinder ICE agents to gain jail admission.