Overview
“I see more friends and families wearing masks or dressing up in costumes like Batman or using pseudonyms to protect their identity; “ SIREN
Immigrants are increasingly becoming targets of a new “stealth war” carried out by immigration enforcement that uses AI to identify and track immigrant communities across the United States. Immigration advocates describe this growing use of AI-powered surveillance as “live targeting,” arguing that it can bypass constitutional protections.
The speed and scale of new technologies are driving a paradigm shift in data processing, said panellists, driving a reported surge in ICE raids across major US cities, including, according to ACoM, 50,000 in July alone.
“I see the advent of powerful AI-driven analytic tools to target neighborhoods, not just individuals,” said Ed Kissam of the Werner-Kohnstamm Family Fund, pointing to the US Census Bureau’s recent proposal to include citizenship and immigration status questions in the 2030 Census. “This is a huge data grab.”
Denise Bell, Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center and the co-author of the Agents of Chaos and Cruelty report, described how surveillance technologies and data collection work in tandem. Her analysis of more than 1,200 enforcement incidents in 2025 revealed a pattern Bell described as the “state’s policy of renorming of immigration enforcement.” This means that everyday places such as grocery stores, gas stations, traffic stops, and even parks have become sites for targeting families, including children.
Emerging patterns of enforcement include greater power consolidation by DHS, amplified violence and evasion of accountability by administration officials, racial profiling, and efforts to influence anti-immigrant voting, she said.
“Viewed from a broader lens, the administration’s project in mass deportation is not just a direct instrument of power. It is about defining who belongs in the United States,” said Bell.
The Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services are included in the information-exchange nexus, said Dr. Steven Hubbard, Senior Data Scientist at the American Immigration Council.
“Once these different sources are connected, technology makes it possible to search and analyze enormous amounts of information and identify patterns, relationships, and associations at a scale that would be extraordinarily difficult to do manually. And I think that’s an important point.”
The risk to immigrants is greater in some states like Texas, West Virginia, and Alabama, said Lena Graber, Senior Managing Attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC). Enforcement officials in these states are “aggressively contributing to mass deportation” by targeting contact points with the immigration system or DHS, such as airports and immigration benefit centers.
She warned that surveillance technology was being used as a political tool. Large amounts of funding are being allocated to DHS and ICE to procure data from contractors or big corporations, said Graber. “I think surveillance is not a technology story; it’s a political story. Autocrats use surveillance to suppress dissent, and the more corrupt and unjust your government, the more you rely on surveillance to maintain power and to suppress the opposition.”
Surveillance Ecosystem Tools
AI has developed into an ecosystem involving technology firms, corporations, and administrative and police authorities, the speakers explained. At the core of this ecosystem are tools such as ELITE, Flock cameras, and automated license plate readers (ALPR) form the core of the surveillance ecosystem.
Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE), developed by Palantir, enables immigration enforcement operations by populating maps with potential deportation targets. ‘Operation Black Rose’ used ELITE, along with Mobile Fortify and Mobile Query, to track immigrant vehicles and neighborhoods in Oregon in 2025, said Stephen Manning, Executive Director of the Innovation Law Lab. Implemented under a “General Warrant,” the operation was a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment, which “requires that a warrant has to be particularized for a particular person or particular reason,” he said.
Flock cameras, the automated license plate reader systems (ALPRs), capture vehicle details, build a searchable database, and give real-time alerts for crime prevention and safety. However, by adding more AI features and open-source intelligence that is scraped from the web, Flock is increasingly being used for surveillance.
California is one of the most heavily surveilled states in the US, said Brian Hofer, Executive Director, Secure Justice. “The challenging part is to convince elected officials that these are not systems in isolation.” With real-time crime centers “exploding,” drones flying, and CCTV license plate readers capturing every single movement, the information is being “commingled.” This aggregated data ultimately reveals patterns and behaviors in how people live and where and when they move. He noted that following growing opposition to Flock, 181 Flock contracts were terminated in August 2026 in California.
Jonathan Paz, a former employee at Flock Safety and a congressional candidate in Massachusetts, added that in his hometown, Waltham, the chief of police and the mayor allowed ALPRs to be set up overnight without any ordinance or public hearing.
These applications are amplified by surveillance methods such as “skip tracing, which means trying to locate a person by piecing together information from different sources,” explained Dr. Steven Hubbard. Private investigators have used skip tracing for years, but today’s scale of surveillance increases the volume of information they can trace and connect.
“Surveillance power doesn’t come from sophisticated AI. It comes from connecting data, and immigration agencies possess an enormous amount of data.” He cautioned that data collection and pattern matching may not always be accurate, as “errors at scale produce harm at scale.”
From Data Collection to Data Sharing
Data-sharing agreements around SNAP, IRS tax data, and license plates make immigrants vulnerable, said Bell. Her findings revealed 199 incidents of surveillance misconduct, including “photographing or filming people in cars or on streets or photographing license plates.”
Saira Hussain, Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), focused on the “data broker loophole,” which allows the government to bypass warrant requirements by purchasing private data from companies such as Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis. She cited a case in which DHS obtained records of 17 million commercial drivers registered with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA).
She also raised concerns about the “continuous vetting” of immigrants who have applied for immigration benefits. Applicants may be required to make their online footprint—including social media profiles—public throughout the process. AI has made this monitoring easier and more extensive.
“While a lot of courts have been blocking such actions, the actual impact on the ground is that this is causing people to withdraw from seeking censuses and benefits,” she said.
Public pressure is effective
Grassroots community-led movements are countering the growing digital panopticon through public pressure, support hotlines, and online platforms.
Brian Hofer shared he was working on coalition building and litigation because “flooding the courts and the council chambers” were the two most effective strategies.
“Public pressure is effective,” he said.
In Oregon, a Rapid Resource Network and the Justice Bus connect community observers and legal aid through a helpline number, said Stephen Manning, a lawyer who boarded the Justice Bus to meet MJMA at the ICE facility in Portland; this resulted in a class action suit – MJMA v. DHS.
Jonathan Paz emphasized the need for accountability at the ground level. He has launched a rapid response network, a hotline for immigrant communities, and a local-level license plate database to identify vehicles belonging to ICE agents. “Even having one good city councilor in your city can make things work incredibly,” he said.
Kimberly Woo, a community organizer at SIREN, said that people are afraid to apply for eligible programs or share legal documents for fear that their data will be weaponized against them. SIREN is a nonprofit serving immigrant and refugee communities in the Bay Area and Central Valley, California. “I see more friends and families wearing masks or dressing up in costumes like Batman or using pseudonyms to protect their identity; some even forgo going to public gatherings like social events, sporting events, or even rallies altogether.”
SIREN has successfully mobilized local healthcare organizations, religious groups, and activists against Flock, ALPRs, and mass surveillance tools, leading to the removal of Flock cameras in Mountain View. SIREN is empowering the community to start local chapters, share organizing and research strategies, including PRA requests or audits, engage in public education campaigns, and participate in rallies and marches. By using creative tactics to make the invisible visible, SIREN is bridging the gap between technical complexity and accessible activism,
Dr. Steven Hubbard suggested a framework to better understand and report AI in surveillance, and keep humans in the loop. Questions focus on:
- what is the input being fed to the system?
- what did the system actually do with the information?
- what was the output, or risk score?
- what happened after the output, and how meaningful was human review?
- could the affected person challenge the underlying data or conclusion?
Saira Hussain identified surveillance technologies being deployed in the ‘Atlas of Surveillance,’ a tool developed by EFF to gather information through public records, open-source investigations, and community members. This will be useful when media cover stories of surveillance technologies and tracking police activities.
Newsrooms could also utilize the Secure Justice website that Brian Hofer created to train journalists in digital security. Hofer also suggested the California’s Free Drop Tool, which requires data brokers to delete personal data. “Reducing the data held by data brokers makes profiling and identification much more difficult,” he explained.
Denise Bell shared a report and an ACLU partner toolkit that helps communities build awareness and inspire community action to move from documenting harm to advocating for systemic legislative change.
Abdi Soltani, Executive Director of the ACLU of Northern California, emphasized the growing importance of state-level protections as federal safeguards shift. “Every person deserves the freedom of movement, the right to move about in their community without the government tracking every movement.
“This is the basic concept of liberty.”
This article was written with support of an American Community Media fellowship to cover the Expanding Surveillance Dragnet.
