The United States’ anti-immigration regime already boasts an impressive arsenal of surveillance towers, cloud data bases, and automated visa systems.
Adding to that panopticon is the personal phone of every Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agent currently prowling the streets of US for migrants to round up.
404 Media was the first to report the troubling rise of federal immigration officers busting out their phones to scan people’s faces to confirm their immigration status.
“I’m an American citizen so just leave me alone,” a Chicago-area man tells a swarm of masked immigration officials in a video circulating on social media. The man had refused to give his ID, and was declining to give officers information about his job. “Just get out of here, I have to go to work bro,” he pleads.
That’s when one of the officers points his phone camera at the driver’s face. He proceeds to fumble with his phone for a few seconds, while other masked feds crowd around and a small group of protestors gather.
“Hey, so listen, if you can — if you can take your hat off, it’ll go a lot quicker,” the officer stammers.
DHS investigate a potential illegal alien in West Chicago. Loudmouth Lupe Esq. from my previous video can be seen in the background with the orange hoodie. DHS agents were incredibly patient and respectful during this investigation. pic.twitter.com/0uZIwt0M8b — Kim "Katie" USA (@KimKatieUSA) October 27, 2025
Other clips are also making the rounds showing ICE and CBP agents making prejudicial stops, haranguing brown-skinned people and scanning their faces when they exercise their right to refuse to cooperate.
Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that customs officials could not target people based on the color of their skin. That decision was at least temporarily suspended thanks to an emergency ruling by 2025’s Supreme Court, allowing feds to stop people based on factors like race, ethnicity, or the language they’re speaking.
Now imbued with the power to racially profile whoever they want, federal agents are increasingly using facial recognition as the go-to tool to sort the citizens from the migrants. The dystopian practice is in keeping with comments made by ICE’s acting director Todd Lyons earlier this year, when he said he imagines deportations running like “[Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.”
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