During last year’s presidential race, President Donald Trump made cracking down on immigration a central campaign theme, vowing to reach record-high deportation numbers.
Within the first eight months of his term, this pledge resulted in about 350,000 people being deported. This total, according to CNN, includes roughly 200,000 deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), over 132,000 by Customs and Border Protection, and nearly 18,000 who left the country voluntarily.
ICE has played a leading role in Trump’s efforts, conducting raids on homes, workplaces, and public areas to locate undocumented immigrants. The agency relies on various technologies to identify, monitor, and track both individuals and larger communities.
Below is an overview of some of the digital tools ICE currently utilizes.
Clearview AI facial recognition
Clearview AI has become a prominent name in facial recognition. The company has long claimed it can identify anyone by searching a massive trove of images it collected from the internet.
As reported by 404 Media on Monday, ICE recently secured a deal with Clearview AI to bolster its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division, with the technology intended to help identify both victims and perpetrators in cases of child sexual exploitation and attacks on law enforcement officers.
Government procurement data shows the contract, signed just last week, is valued at $3.75 million.
ICE has entered into other agreements with Clearview AI over the past several years. In September 2024, the agency acquired “forensic software” from the company in a $1.1 million deal. The previous year, ICE spent close to $800,000 on “facial recognition enterprise licenses.”
Clearview AI did not issue a statement in response to requests for comment.
Paragon phone spyware
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In September 2024, ICE entered a $2 million contract with Israeli spyware developer Paragon Solutions. The Biden administration quickly imposed a “stop work order,” pausing the agreement for review to ensure it followed federal rules around the use of commercial spyware.
Because of this order, the contract remained on hold for almost a year. Just last week, the Trump administration lifted the stop work order, putting the contract back in effect .
Currently, the actual status of Paragon’s working relationship with ICE is uncertain.
Last week’s records indicate that the Paragon agreement covers “a fully configured proprietary solution including license, hardware, warranty, maintenance, and training.” Realistically, unless the equipment and training were delivered in the previous year, it could be a while before ICE can operationalize the system.
It remains unknown whether the spyware will be handled by ICE or by HSI, an investigative arm that deals with more than just immigration, including online child exploitation, human trafficking, and financial crimes.
Paragon has long branded itself as a responsible and “ethical” spyware provider, and now faces the decision of whether partnering with Trump’s ICE meets those standards. The company has been through significant changes recently. In December, AE Industrial, a U.S. private equity firm, bought Paragon with intentions to merge it with cybersecurity company RedLattice, according to Israeli tech publication Calcalist.
When TechCrunch contacted Paragon for comment on the ICE contract’s reactivation, the inquiry was redirected to Jennifer Iras, RedLattice’s new vice president of marketing and communications, hinting the merger may have proceeded.
RedLattice’s Iras did not provide a response for this or the previous article.
In recent months, Paragon has been implicated in a spyware controversy in Italy, where authorities were accused of surveilling journalists and immigration advocates. In response, Paragon cut off its relationship with Italian intelligence agencies.
Phone hacking and unlocking technology
In mid-September, Homeland Security Investigations, the law enforcement division of ICE, signed a $3 million agreement with Magnet Forensics.
The deal covers software licenses that allow HSI personnel to “recover digital evidence, process multiple devices,” and “generate forensic reports,” according to the contract details.
Magnet currently manufactures the Graykey device, a tool that enables law enforcement to connect and unlock secured phones, granting access to the data inside.
Magnet Forensics, which merged with Grayshift, the original Graykey producer, in 2023, did not respond to requests for comment.
LexisNexis’ legal and public records databases
ICE has relied on LexisNexis, a major provider of legal research and public records, to assist with investigations for many years.
In 2022, documents obtained by two nonprofit organizations through Freedom of Information Act requests showed that, over a seven-month period, ICE carried out more than 1.2 million searches using a tool called Accurint Virtual Crime Center to research migrants’ backgrounds.
A year later, The Intercept revealed that ICE was applying LexisNexis’ data to flag suspicious activities and look into migrants before any crimes had been committed, a practice critics described as “mass surveillance.”
Public records indicate that LexisNexis currently gives ICE access to its “law enforcement investigative database subscription (LEIDS),” allowing agents to review public and commercial records as part of criminal probes.
So far this year, ICE has spent $4.7 million on its subscription to the service.
Jennifer Richman, a spokesperson for LexisNexis, told TechCrunch that ICE has been using the company’s data and analytics offerings for decades, across different administrations.
“Our mission is to promote the lawful and ethical use of data, always adhering to regulations and ensuring the safety of everyone in the U.S.,” Richman said, noting that LexisNexis collaborates with over 7,500 federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies nationwide to help enhance public safety and security.”
Surveillance giant Palantir
Palantir, a leader in data analytics and surveillance technology, has landed several contracts with ICE over the past year. The largest, signed in September 2024 and worth $18.5 million, is for its “Investigative Case Management” (ICM) database system.
The ICM contract can be traced back to 2022, when Palantir inked a $95.9 million agreement with ICE. Palantir, co-founded by Peter Thiel, has worked with ICE since the early 2010s.
Earlier this year, 404 Media, which has conducted in-depth reporting on the technologies driving Trump’s deportation policies and Palantir’s role in them , detailed how the ICM database functions. The publication viewed a recent version of the system, which enables ICE to filter people by immigration status, physical traits, criminal associations, location information, and more.
A source familiar with the system told 404 Media that the database contains “tables upon tables” of information and can generate reports on, for instance, people with a certain visa type who entered at a particular port, are from a specific country, and have certain hair colors—or any of hundreds of possible data points.”
The database, along with Palantir’s ongoing partnership with ICE, has been so contentious that company insiders leaked an internal wiki to 404 Media, revealing Palantir’s internal rationale for working with Trump’s ICE.
Palantir is also developing a system called “ImmigrationOS,” as shown by a $30 million contract uncovered by Business Insider .
ImmigrationOS is reportedly intended to simplify the “selection and apprehension operations of illegal aliens,” provide “almost real-time updates” on self-deportations, and enable tracking of those who overstay visas, according to a document first cited by Wired .
Originally published on September 13 and updated September 18 to include the new Magnet Forensics contract.
