ICE plans round-the-clock social media surveillance of immigrants, activists

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is establishing dedicated social media surveillance teams at two facilities, with plans to hire nearly 30 private contractors to monitor online platforms to generate leads for deportation raids.

What they’ll do: Federal contracting records obtained by Wired show that ICE seeks vendors to staff around-the-clock surveillance operations at its National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center in Williston, Vermont, and the Pacific Enforcement Response Center in Santa Ana, California, with 12 and 16 contractors, respectively. Under the proposal, work could start in May 2026, though the agency is still gauging contractor interest before formally soliciting bids.

Once hired, analysts would scour platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X, equipped with commercial databases that compile property records, phone bills and vehicle registrations into searchable profiles. They face strict turnaround times, with 30 minutes for urgent national security cases and one hour for high-priority leads. Meanwhile, top contractors are expected to meet deadlines 95% of the time. The proposal explicitly identifies “domestic or international terrorism,” which under President Donald Trump’s policy includes antifa as among the most urgent case categories.

Why this matters: The expansion represents a concerning escalation in digital surveillance that could sweep up families, friends and coworkers in ever-widening dragnets. According to draft planning documents, contractors may investigate not just targets but also their family members, coworkers and other connections to help agents determine locations. This suggests people with no enforcement history may have their social media activity scrutinized and tracked.

As it appears, the surveillance infrastructure threatens to chill online expression within immigrant communities, where maintaining connections across borders through social platforms has become essential to family life and cultural preservation. Such concerns are amplified by The Intercept’s reporting in February that ICE was developing plans for a system that could scan social media for “negative references” and flag users who have a “proclivity for violence.”

Strategies of surveillance: ICE reactivated a $2 million contract in August for Paragon’s Graphite spyware, which can hack mobile phones and access encrypted applications like Signal and WhatsApp. The agency has also allegedly obtained informal access to a nationwide network of automatic license plate reader cameras by working through local police departments, with records showing over 4,000 searches containing immigration-related terms between June 2024 and May 2025.

In September, the agency signed a $9.2 million contract with Clearview AI for facial recognition software, the largest such federal purchase to date, which would be used to investigate “assaults against law enforcement officers.” The agency has also acquired iris-scanning smartphone apps and drones used to film protesters. These surveillance tools complement ICE’s main investigative database, built by Palantir Technologies, which already uses algorithmic analysis to filter huge populations and generate leads.

What ICE is saying: In response to questions about the surveillance expansion, an ICE spokesperson stated, “Like other law enforcement agencies, ICE employs various forms of technology to investigate criminal activity, while respecting civil liberties and privacy.” Agency planning documents also claim that “previous approaches … which have not incorporated open web sources and social media information, have had limited success.” Last month, Acting Director Todd M. Lyons told “The Glenn Beck Program” that the agency will deploy elite investigators to “track the money” and “track these ringleaders” of anti-ICE protests.