Programs such as “Catch and Revoke” and expanded agreements 287 (g) expand government access to personal data, which not only affect immigrants but also US citizens.
The United States under President Donald Trump is increasing the use of artificial surveillance and intelligence systems (AI) to trace and judge immigrants, which increases precision and privacy fears could almost any person in repression.
The National Security Department (DHS) and other imigration control agencies are using an AI tools suite, such as facial recognition scanners in public areas and robotic dogs that patrol the southern border for human movement, as part of the maids.
Many of the AI tools that immigration agents are using have been in force for years and are a legacy of previous administrations, according to Saira Hussain, lawyer of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group of defense of digital rights.
But now these tools have “an accelerated scope in terms of who [they are] Leadership “, and a broader range of people will have access to the data that collect these tools, said Hussain.
The pumped surveillance dragnet also includes services administered by private contractors such as Babel Street, which drag the social media accounts of immigrants to collect personal information.
Once this information is collected, agencies such as DHS and Customs and Border Protection of the United States (CBP) use it to track immigrants, draw their family trees and justify the orders of judgment and deportation decisions.
An example of the Wuiding scope is the new “Catch and Revoke” program of the Government, launched under the Secretary of State Framework Rubio in March.
Use AI to monitor the public discourse of foreign citizens, particularly the holes of the students’ visa, to locate those who “seem to support Hamas or other designated terrorist groups,” the News axios website reported.
Any person trapped by the program has an immediate risk of losing their visa, and more than 300 foreign citizens, including those with visas of students and visitors, have revoked their visas under the initiative, agreeing to Rubio.
“If they are taking activities that are contrary to our … national interest, to our foreign policy, we will revoke the visa,” Rubio said at a press conference on March 28.
Precision risks
Digital rights defenders point to the tendency of AI tools to say “false hallucinations: responses or information that is manufactured but that are manufactured, which makes them dangerous to use in situations that require precision such as the application of immigration.
Paromita Shah, executive director of the Rights of Immigrants Just Futures Law, said that the sentence of migrants who use tools “collects many Conerns on violations and abuses of civil rights.”
Since Trump assumed the position in January, there have been numerous cases of immigration officials who act on data from the inaccurate, say the defenders of rights.
These include Jonathan Guerrero, an American citizen arrested by immigration and customs agents of Customs (ICE) of the United States in Philadelphia, and Jensy Machado, a American citizen hero at gunpoint while leading work in Virginia. Each one was released later.
An executive order signed by Trump in January suggested the possible return of “rapid DNA tests”, a process used to verify migrant family connections that was eliminated in 2023 due to privacy and precision conerns.
“The technologies begin on the border and crawl inside without being precise,” said Hussain.
“I think that precision is not what this administration is looking for. They really go for the great news of” we were able to demolish X many people. “
Tekendra Parkmar, an independent technology analyst, agreed, saying that precision is not a priority for the Trump administration that is more concerned with meeting the deportation objectives.
“The fallibility of technology … allows the current administration to create a policy of deportation of rubber stamps under the appearance of artificial intelligence,” said Parmar.
Neinder DHS or ICE responded to requests for comments.
Launch a broader network
Researchers say that surveillance systems not only attack immigrants, but all US residents, citizens or not.
In 2021, the investigators of the Law Center of the University of Georgetown found that ICE had access to the driver’s license data of three out of four American adults and could locate the same number through their public records of public services.
“These intensive data tools add all these data points and create associations,” said Emerald TSE, associated at the Georgetown Law and Technology Center. “It can involve people in their home, their neighbors, their workplace, literally all aspects of their lives.”
These aggregate data are pumped to algorithms that help decide who should stop the ice, whether to release a person from detention or determine the terms of their electronic surveillance, experts say.
Immigration agencies are also growing in scope. Another executive order of Trump encourages the use of what are called 287 (G) agreements that allow the DHS Diput to act as federal immigration officers.
This provides local authorities with full access to the AI tools that ICE uses, along with all the private data that these tools have gathered. That means that thousands of immigration agents are driving private data and hunting people who involve the data.
“That’s where I see a ramp,” said Hussain. “The federals have their technology and the locals have their technology. There will be a lot to share that information and any data that technology can collect.”
Posted on April 19, 2025