American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century

July 1, 2022 8:30 PM

When you think about government surveillance in the United States, you likely think of the National Security Agency or the FBI. You might even think of a powerful police agency, such as the New York Police Department. But unless you or someone you love has been targeted for deportation, you probably don’t immediately think of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This report argues that you should.

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posted by aniola (12 comments total)

Well I'm definitely already wary of CBP to the point where I contemplate doing a backup and factory reset of all digital devices before border crossings and/or signing up a completely separate set of innocuous social media accounts in case I'm asked for passwords, but I'll add suspicion of ICE to the list.
posted by BrotherCaine at 9:41 PM on July 1, 2022 [2 favorites]

CBP is also the agency that claims special jurisdiction 100 miles from any US border which covers a majority of US citizens.
posted by meowzilla at 11:36 PM on July 1, 2022 [7 favorites]

somehow, i feel like this supreme court's fears about delegating too much authority to executive agencies beyond what congress intended will, oddly, not apply here.
posted by wibari at 11:46 PM on July 1, 2022 [20 favorites]

Apparently I know a lot more immigrants and Mexican Americans than some people - I was practically raised to be terrified of la migra and have been increasingly concerned as they built up this surveillance apparatus in the wake of 911.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:16 AM on July 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

I also find the opening line odd. Is ICE and their tactics seriously not widely known? Or do people just not really care so much because they think people should immigrate "the right way," (which is a farce) and they're not thinking about how all of this law enforcement requires racial profiling of perfectly legal brown and Black residents as well.

(We know the White people overstaying visas are not ICE's big concern.)
posted by desuetude at 9:04 AM on July 2, 2022

This is my shocked face....but no matter, CBP already has a scanned and digitized file of it.
posted by gimonca at 9:12 AM on July 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

I also find the opening line odd. Is ICE and their tactics seriously not widely known?

I think it's to save face. So that you can share it with your state legislators.
posted by aniola at 9:23 AM on July 2, 2022

I think we can do without the "Well, I was raised to be afraid of ICE" commentary and I say this as someone who was.
posted by hoyland at 9:39 AM on July 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Is ICE and their tactics seriously not widely known?

I'd say the quantity and scope of surveillance described the article is new to a lot of people. I was a bit surprised myself.
posted by gimonca at 2:10 PM on July 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

“ ICE has scanned the driver’s license photos of 1 in 3 adults.”
Anyone got the numbers for Amazon scans of drivers licenses?
posted by Ideefixe at 5:23 PM on July 2, 2022

Is this why elected officials stopped talking about abolishing ICE? Because they’re too big to fail?
posted by Selena777 at 6:08 PM on July 2, 2022

Major cryptocurrency exchange signs $1.4 million deal to help ICE track crypto trades
posted by atomicmedia at 7:54 PM on July 2, 2022