Palantir Just Got Millions to Improve ICE's People Database

Hey there, Joseph here with a story on Palantir and ICE. The agency just paid Palantir tens of millions of dollars to make updates to a massive database ICE uses to track down people, according to contracting data I looked through. That includes a payment to "deploy new Targeting and Enforcement Prioritization." One major priority for the agency has, obviously, been ramping up deportation efforts. The full story follows below.

Last week Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) paid contracting giant Palantir tens of millions of dollars to make modifications to a powerful ICE database and search tool to allow “complete target analysis of known populations” and to update the tool’s targeting and enforcement priorities, according to procurement records reviewed by 404 Media.

The records show that Palantir is actively working on, and making updates to, the technical infrastructure underpinning the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. The news comes after ICE agents arrested a green card holding student at his interview to become a U.S. citizen; plainclothes officers picked up a student on the street for deportation despite the State Department finding no evidence she was linked to antisemitism or Hamas as claimed; and the American and El Salvadorian presidents deflecting when asked who was going to return a man who was mistakenly deported to a foreign mega prison. Trump has also called for deporting U.S. citizens to El Salvador.

At the same time, Palantir is running adverts at U.S. colleges which say “a moment of reckoning has arrived for the West. Our culture has fallen into shallow consumerism while abandoning national purpose. Too few in Silicon Valley have asked what ought to be built—and why. We did.”

“As a whole, extending Palantir's services with intentionally vague corporate-speak phrasing coupled with ICE's recent public escalation of violating people's rights via harassment, deportation without a basis, and terrorizing immigrants paints a clear picture: Palantir's engagement with ICE is facilitating and enabling abuses and violation of rights—rights like due process which, I want to note, extend to all in the US, regardless of citizenship status,” Calli Schroeder, senior counsel and global privacy counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), told 404 Media in an email after reviewing screenshots of the records.

“This modification adds licenses, configuration, and engineering services for the Investigative Case Management system to deploy new Targeting and Enforcement Prioritization, Self-Deportation Tracking, and Immigration Lifecycle Process capabilities,” one note on a contract between ICE and Palantir from April 11 for $29,898,236 reads. Another from March 14 says the award was for “Modification for Data Analytics to support complete target analysis of known populations and populate lead tracking solutions.”

The Investigative Case Management system, or ICM, connects to other DHS and federal databases, including SEVIA which contains records about people who are inside the country on a student visa; real-time maps associated with ICE’s location tracking tools; and other information from other federal agencies. The Intercept has previously reported that those agencies include the FBI, DEA, ATF, and CIA.

A screenshot of one of the contract updates.

ICM then allows ICE to search for and filter people by hundreds of highly specific categories. 404 Media viewed parts of the database last week, and saw those categories include a person’s resident and entry status; physical characteristics such as tattoos or scars; race, hair, and eye color; place of employment; Social Security Number; driver’s license status; bankruptcy status, and location and license plate reader data.

The award is the continuation of an around $90 million, five year contract that started in September 2022, according to the procurement records. Records created during the Biden administration as part of that contract are much more generic, such as “Investigative Case Management (ICM) Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Support Services and Custom Enhancements.” Another mentions an implementation for ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which is tasked with conducting independent reviews of ICE activities.

The two dating from March and April are much more explicit. Regarding the changes around targeting and enforcement prioritization mentioned in one of the contract notes, a previously published privacy impact assessment for the tool says that ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) “uses ICM in a more limited way than HSI in support of its mission to enforce U.S. immigration laws by identifying, arresting, and removing aliens in a way that is consistent with current enforcement priorities.”

“The terms used in these documents do nothing to further transparency as they raise more questions than answers. Palantir's technology and ICE's use of it further oppressive and unjust surveillance practices and we have to demand better accountability and transparency from both,” Schroeder said.

A screenshot of one of the contract updates.

“The phrases on this contract addition are a clear signal that Palantir stands ready to carry out the racist and lawless immigration policies of the current administration,” Laura Rivera, an attorney at Just Futures Law, told 404 Media in an email.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said at the recent Border Security Expo that his dream for the agency is squads of trucks rounding up immigrants in the same way that Amazon trucks are across the country delivering packages, the Arizona Mirror reported.

Neither ICE nor Palantir responded to a request for comment.