During last year’s presidential race, President Donald Trump made immigration enforcement a central theme, vowing to carry out a record number of deportations.
Within his first eight months in office, this pledge resulted in approximately 350,000 deportations. This total includes about 200,000 removals by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), over 132,000 by Customs and Border Protection, and nearly 18,000 voluntary departures, according to CNN.
ICE has played a leading role in Trump’s large-scale deportation efforts, conducting raids at residences, workplaces, and public spaces to locate undocumented individuals. To support these operations, ICE utilizes a range of technologies for identifying and monitoring people and communities.
Below is an overview of some of the digital tools ICE employs.
Cell-site Simulator Devices
ICE uses a surveillance tool known as a cell-site simulator to monitor mobile phones. These devices mimic cell towers, causing nearby phones to connect to them. Once connected, law enforcement can pinpoint and identify phones in the area, and may also intercept calls, texts, and data traffic.
These simulators are often referred to as “stingrays,” after an early model produced by Harris (now L3Harris), or as IMSI catchers, which can capture a phone’s unique identifier to help authorities determine the owner.
Over the past two years, ICE has entered into contracts exceeding $1.5 million with TechOps Specialty Vehicles (TOSV), a company that builds specialized law enforcement vans.
A contract dated May 8, 2025, valued at over $800,000, states that TOSV will supply “Cell Site Simulator (CSS) Vehicles” to assist the Homeland Security Technical Operations program.
TOSV president Jon Brianas explained to TechCrunch that while the company does not manufacture the simulators themselves, it incorporates them into its vehicle designs.
Cell-site simulators have sparked controversy for several reasons.
Because these devices prompt all nearby phones to connect, they inevitably collect data from many people not under investigation. Additionally, authorities have sometimes used them without first securing a warrant.
Officials have also attempted to keep their use of this technology secret in court, withholding details and even dropping cases or accepting plea deals rather than reveal information about cell-site simulators. For example, in a 2019 Baltimore case, it emerged that prosecutors were told to abandon cases rather than breach a non-disclosure agreement with the device manufacturer.
Clearview AI facial recognition
Clearview AI is arguably the most prominent facial recognition firm today. The company has claimed for years that it can identify anyone by searching a vast database of images scraped from the web.
On Monday, 404 Media revealed that ICE has contracted with Clearview AI to assist its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division, providing tools to identify both victims and perpetrators in cases involving child exploitation and assaults on law enforcement.
Government procurement records show the contract, signed last week, is valued at $3.75 million.
ICE has previously worked with Clearview AI. In September 2024, the agency bought “forensic software” from the company for $1.1 million. The previous year, ICE paid nearly $800,000 for “facial recognition enterprise licenses.”
Clearview AI did not reply to requests for comment.
Paragon phone spyware
In September 2024, ICE entered a $2 million agreement with Israeli spyware developer Paragon Solutions. Shortly after, the Biden administration issued a “stop work order,” pausing the contract to review its compliance with executive orders on government use of commercial spyware.
Due to this order, the contract was in limbo for nearly a year. Last week, the Trump administration lifted the stop work order, effectively reinstating the agreement.
Currently, it is uncertain what the practical status of Paragon’s partnership with ICE is.
A recent records entry states that the Paragon contract covers “a fully configured proprietary solution including license, hardware, warranty, maintenance, and training.” Unless installation and training were completed last year, it may still be some time before ICE can fully deploy Paragon’s system.
It is also not clear whether the spyware will be used by ICE or HSI, the latter of which investigates not only immigration but also crimes such as online child exploitation, human trafficking, and financial fraud.
Paragon has long marketed itself as an “ethical” and responsible spyware provider, and now faces the decision of whether to work with Trump’s ICE. The company has undergone significant changes in the past year. In December, U.S. private equity firm AE Industrial acquired Paragon, with plans to merge it with cybersecurity company RedLattice, according to Israeli tech outlet Calcalist.
Suggesting the merger may have occurred, when TechCrunch sought comment from Paragon about the ICE contract’s reactivation, they were referred to Jennifer Iras, the new vice president of marketing and communications at RedLattice.
RedLattice’s Iras did not respond to requests for comment for this or previous articles.
Recently, Paragon has been implicated in a spyware controversy in Italy, where authorities have been accused of surveilling journalists and immigration advocates. In response, Paragon severed ties with Italian intelligence agencies.
Phone hacking and unlocking technology
In mid-September, Homeland Security Investigations, ICE’s law enforcement branch, signed a $3 million contract with Magnet Forensics.
This deal provides software licenses enabling HSI agents to “recover digital evidence, process multiple devices,” and “generate forensic reports,” as described in the contract.
Magnet currently produces the Graykey phone hacking and unlocking devices, which allow law enforcement to connect and unlock secured phones to access their contents.
Magnet Forensics, which merged with Graykey’s creator Grayshift in 2023, did not reply to requests for comment.
Cellphone Location Data
At the end of September, 404 Media reported that ICE purchased access to an “all-in-one” surveillance platform that lets the agency search databases of historical cellphone location data and social media information.
This platform appears to consist of two products, Tangles and Webloc, both developed by Penlink. One of these tools claims to use “a proprietary data platform to compile, process, and validate billions of daily location signals from hundreds of millions of mobile devices, offering both forensic and predictive analytics,” according to a redacted contract obtained by 404 Media.
The contract does not specify which tool offers these capabilities, but based on the description, it is likely Webloc. Forbes previously referenced a case study indicating that Webloc can analyze a location to “track trends of mobile devices that have provided data at those locations and their frequency of visits.”
Such cellphone location data is collected globally by companies through software development kits (SDKs) embedded in ordinary apps, or via real-time bidding (RTB) in online advertising, where companies bid to display ads to users based on demographic or location data. This process also gives ad tech firms access to personal data.
After collection, this vast trove of location data is sold to data brokers, who then offer it to government agencies. Because of this multi-step process, authorities can access this data without a warrant simply by purchasing it.
The other product, Tangles, is described as an “AI-powered open-source intelligence” tool that automates “the search and analysis of data from the open, deep, and dark web,” according to Penlink’s website.
Forbes reported in September that ICE spent $5 million on these two Penlink tools.
Penlink did not respond to inquiries for comment.
LexisNexis’ legal and public records databases
ICE has long relied on LexisNexis, a legal research and public records data broker, to aid its investigations.
In 2022, two non-profit groups obtained documents through Freedom of Information Act requests, revealing that ICE conducted over 1.2 million searches in seven months using the Accurint Virtual Crime Center tool to review migrants’ background information.
A year later, The Intercept reported that ICE was using LexisNexis to flag suspicious activity and investigate migrants before any crime was committed—a practice critics say amounts to “mass surveillance.”
Public records indicate that LexisNexis currently supplies ICE with a “law enforcement investigative database subscription (LEIDS),” providing access to public and commercial records for criminal investigations.
This year, ICE has spent $4.7 million on this subscription.
LexisNexis spokesperson Jennifer Richman told TechCrunch that ICE has used the company’s data and analytics products for decades, spanning multiple administrations.
“We are dedicated to ensuring data is used responsibly and ethically, in full accordance with laws and regulations, and to protect all U.S. residents,” Richman said, adding that LexisNexis “works with more than 7,500 federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies nationwide to promote public safety and security.”
Surveillance giant Palantir
Palantir, a major player in data analytics and surveillance technology, has secured several contracts with ICE in the past year. The largest, from September 2024, is an $18.5 million deal for the “Investigative Case Management” (ICM) database system.
The ICM contract dates back to 2022, when Palantir signed a $95.9 million agreement with ICE. The company, founded by Peter Thiel, has worked with ICE since the early 2010s.
Earlier this year, 404 Media, which has extensively covered the technology behind Trump’s deportation initiatives and Palantir’s role, detailed how the ICM database functions. The outlet reported seeing a recent version of the system, which enables ICE to filter individuals by immigration status, physical traits, criminal ties, location data, and more.
According to 404 Media, “a source familiar with the database” described it as containing ‘tables upon tables’ of data, and said it can generate reports showing, for instance, people on a certain visa who entered at a specific port, from a particular country, with a certain hair color, or any of hundreds of other data points.”
The tool and Palantir’s collaboration with ICE have been controversial enough that internal sources leaked to 404 Media a company wiki where Palantir defends its work with Trump’s ICE.
Palantir is also developing a product called “ImmigrationOS,” according to a $30 million contract reported by Business Insider.
ImmigrationOS is intended to streamline “selection and apprehension operations of illegal aliens,” provide “near real-time visibility” into self-deportations, and monitor visa overstays, according to a document first covered by Wired.
This article was originally published on September 13 and updated on September 18 to include Magnet Forensics’ new contract, and again on October 8 to add information about cell-site simulators and location data.
