Here’s the technology that powers ICE’s deportation enforcement efforts

During last year’s presidential campaign, President Donald Trump made immigration a top priority and promised an unprecedented number of deportations.

In his first eight months in office, his pledge amounted to about 350,000 deportations, including deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (about 200,000 people), Customs and Border Protection (more than 132,000 people), and about 18,000 self-deportations, according to CNN.

ICE has taken center stage in President Trump’s mass deportation campaign, raiding homes, workplaces and parks in search of illegal immigrants. To aid in that effort, ICE has several technologies at its disposal that can identify and monitor individuals and communities.

Here we summarize some of the technologies that ICE has in its digital arsenal.

cell site simulator device

ICE has a technology called a cell site simulator that snoops on cell phones. These surveillance devices, as the name suggests, are designed to look like cell phone towers and trick nearby phones into connecting. Once that happens, law enforcement agencies using cell phone site simulators could potentially find and identify nearby phones and intercept calls, text messages, and Internet traffic.

Cell site simulators are also known as “Stingrays”. It is based on the brand name of one of the earlier versions of this technology manufactured by US defense contractor Harris (now L3Harris). or IMSI catcher is a technology that captures the unique identifier of a nearby cell phone and can be used by law enforcement to identify the phone’s owner.

In the past two years, ICE has awarded more than $1.5 million in contracts to a company called TechOps Specialty Vehicles (TOSV), which builds customized vans for law enforcement agencies.

The contract, valued at more than $800,000 and dated May 8, 2025, states that TOSV will provide “cell site simulator (CSS) vehicles in support of the Homeland Security Technology Operations Program.”

TOSV President John Brianas told TechCrunch that the company doesn’t manufacture base station simulators, but rather integrates them “into the overall design of the vehicle.”

Cell site simulators have long been controversial for several reasons.

These devices are designed to trick all nearby phones into connecting, and by design end up collecting data on many innocent people. Authorities also sometimes deployed them without obtaining a warrant.

Authorities have also withheld information from the courts in an attempt to keep the use of the technology secret, even taking plea deals and dropping cases rather than disclosing information about the use of cell tower simulators. A 2019 trial in Baltimore revealed that prosecutors were instructed to drop the case rather than violate a non-disclosure agreement with the device manufacturer.

Clearview AI facial recognition

Clearview AI is probably the most well-known facial recognition company today. For years, the company has promised that it can identify any face by searching its massive database of photos from the Internet.

On Monday, 404 Media reported that ICE had signed a contract with the agency to assist its law enforcement arm, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), with “the ability to identify victims and perpetrators in child sexual exploitation cases and assaults against law enforcement officers.”

The contract signed last week is worth $3.75 million, according to a government procurement database.

ICE has had other contracts with Clearview AI in recent years. In September 2024, authorities purchased “forensic software” from the company in a deal valued at $1.1 million. The year before, ICE paid Clearview AI nearly $800,000 for a “facial recognition enterprise license.”

Clearview AI did not respond to a request for comment.

paragon phone spyware

In September 2024, ICE signed a contract worth $2 million with Israeli spyware maker Paragon Solutions. Almost immediately, the Biden administration issued a “cease and desist order” and reviewed the contract for compliance with an executive order regarding the government’s use of commercial spyware.

That order left the contract in limbo for nearly a year. Then, last week, the Trump administration lifted the cease-and-desist order, effectively restarting the contract.

At this time, the actual status of the relationship between Paragon and ICE is unknown.

Last week’s record entry said the deal with Paragon was for a “fully configured, unique solution including licensing, hardware, warranty, maintenance and training.” Practically speaking, unless hardware installation and training took place last year, it could be a while before ICE gets Paragon’s system up and running.

It is also unclear whether the spyware will be used by ICE or HSI, agencies that investigate not only immigration but also online child sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and financial fraud.

Paragon has long tried to portray itself as an “ethical” and responsible spyware maker, but now it must decide whether it is ethical to work with President Trump’s ICE. A lot happened at Paragon last year. According to Israeli tech news site Calcalist, US private equity giant AE Industrial acquired Paragon in December with plans to merge it with cybersecurity firm Red Lattice.

In a sign that a merger may have taken place, when TechCrunch reached out to Paragon last week for comment on the restart of the ICE contract, it introduced RedLattice’s new vice president of marketing and communications, Jennifer Iras.

RedLattice’s Iras did not respond to requests for comment for this article or last week’s article.

In recent months, Paragon has been embroiled in a spyware scandal in Italy, where the Italian government has been accused of spying on journalists and immigrant activists. In response, Paragon severed ties with Italian intelligence services.

Phone hacking and unlocking technology

In mid-September, ICE’s law enforcement arm, Homeland Security Investigations, awarded a $3 million contract to Magnet Forensics.

The deal is dedicated to software licenses that allow HSI agents to “recover digital evidence, process multiple devices,” and “generate forensic reports,” according to the contract description.

Magnet is the current manufacturer of the phone hacking and unlocking device known as Graykey. These devices essentially allow law enforcement officers to connect and unlock locked cell phones and access the data inside.

Magne Forensics, which merged with Graykey maker Grayshift in 2023, did not respond to a request for comment.

Mobile phone location information

In late September, 404 Media reported that ICE had purchased access to an “all-in-one” surveillance tool that can search a database of historical cell phone location data and social media information.

The tool appears to consist of two products, Tangles and Webloc, developed by a company called Penlink. One of the tools promises to “leverage a proprietary data platform to collect, process, and verify billions of location signals from hundreds of millions of mobile devices every day, and provide both forensic and predictive analytics,” according to a redacted agreement spotted by 404 Media.

The redacted contract doesn’t specify which tool is making that promise, but given its description, it’s likely Webloc. Forbes previously cited an example of Webloc being able to search for a specific location and “monitor the trends of mobile devices that provided data at that location and how often they accessed that location.”

This type of mobile phone location data is collected by companies around the world using software development kits (SDKs) built into regular smartphone apps, or using an online advertising process called real-time bidding (RTB), where companies bid in real time to place ads on mobile phone users’ screens based on demographic and location data. The latter process has the byproduct of providing that kind of personal data to ad tech companies.

Once this mass of location data is collected, it is transferred to data brokers, who then sell it to government agencies. This multi-layered process has allowed authorities to use this type of data without obtaining a warrant, simply by purchasing access to the data.

Another tool, Tangles, is an “AI-powered open-source intelligence” tool that automates “searching and analyzing data from the open, deep, and dark web,” according to Penlink’s official website.

Forbes reported in September that ICE spent $5 million on two Penlink tools.

PenLink did not respond to a request for comment.

LexisNexis legal and public records database

ICE has long used legal research and public records data broker LexisNexis to assist in its investigations.

In 2022, two nonprofit organizations obtained documents through Freedom of Information Act requests that revealed ICE conducted more than 1.2 million searches over a seven-month period using a tool called the Accurint Virtual Crime Center. ICE used this tool to verify background information on immigrants.

A year later, The Intercept revealed that ICE was using LexisNexis to detect suspicious activity and investigate immigrants before committing crimes. Critics said the program enabled “mass surveillance.”

According to public records, LexisNexis currently provides ICE with “Law Enforcement Investigation Database Subscriptions (LEIDS) that provide access to public records and commercial data in support of criminal investigations.”

This year, ICE paid $4.7 million in subscription fees for the service.

LexisNexis spokeswoman Jennifer Richman told TechCrunch that ICE has been using the company’s products “data and analytics solutions for decades and across multiple administrations.”

“Our commitment is to support the responsible and ethical use of data in full compliance with laws and regulations and to protect all residents of the United States,” Richman said, adding that LexisNexis “partners with more than 7,500 federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies across the United States to advance public safety and security.”

Surveillance giant Palantir

Data analytics and surveillance technology giant Palantir signed multiple contracts with ICE last year. The largest contract, worth $18.5 million starting in September 2024, is for a database system called Investigative Case Management (ICM).

The contract with ICM dates back to 2022, when Palantir signed a $95.9 million contract with ICE. Founded by Peter Thiel, the company’s relationship with ICE dates back to the early 2010s.

Earlier this year, 404 Media, which has reported extensively on the technology driving Trump’s deportation efforts, particularly Palantir’s relationship with ICE, revealed details of how the ICM database works. The technology news site reported that ICE has seen an updated version of the database that allows it to filter people based on immigration status, physical characteristics, criminal history, location data, and more.

According to 404 Media, a “source familiar with the database” said the database is made up of “tables upon tables” of data and can generate reports showing, for example, who has a particular type of visa, enters the country at a particular port of entry, comes from a particular country, or has a particular hair color (or hundreds of data points).

The tool and Palantir’s relationship with ICE are so controversial that internal sources leaked to 404 Media an internal wiki in which Palantir justifies President Trump’s cooperation with ICE.

Palantir is also developing a tool called ImmigrationOS, according to a deal worth $30 million revealed by Business Insider.

ImmigrationOS is said to be designed to streamline “illegal alien screening and arrest operations,” provide “near real-time visibility” into voluntary deportations, and track people who overstay their visas, according to documents first reported by Wired.

It was first published on September 13th, updated on September 18th to add a new contract for Magnet Forensics, and again on October 8th to add cell site simulators and location data.