President Donald Trump made countering immigration one of his flagship issues during last year’s presidential campaign, promising an unprecedented number of deportations.
In his first eight months in office, that promise turned into around 350,000 deportations, a figure that includes deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (around 200,000), Customs and Border Protection (more than 132,000), and almost 18,000 self-deportations, according to CNN.
ICE has taken center stage in Trump’s mass deportation campaign, raiding homes, workplaces, and public parks in search of undocumented immigrants. To aid its efforts, the ICE has at its disposal several technologies capable of identifying and surveilling individuals and communities.
Here is a recap of some of the technology that ICE has in its digital arsenal.
Clearview AI facial recognition
Clearview AI is perhaps the most well-known facial recognition company today. For years, the company promised to be able to identify any face by searching through a large database of photos it had scraped from the internet.
On Monday, 404 Media reported that ICE has signed a contract with the company to support its law enforcement arm Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), “with capabilities of identifying victims and offenders in child sexual exploitation cases and assaults against law enforcement officers.”
According to a government procurement database, the contract signed last week is worth $3.75 million.
ICE has had other contracts with Clearview AI in the last couple of years. In September 2024, the agency purchased “forensic software” from the company, a deal worth $1.1 million. The year before, ICE paid Clearview AI nearly $800,000 for “facial recognition enterprise licenses.”
Clearview AI did not respond to a request for comment.
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