On November 6, just hours after news outlets declared that Donald Trump had been elected the next president of the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a notice asking companies to submit plans for how they would expand ICE’s system of ankle monitors, GPS trackers, biometric check-in technology, and human agents monitoring “non-citizens” awaiting immigration court hearings or deportation.
The notice signals the mechanisms through which ICE will expand its intensive surveillance of people awaiting deportation hearings—a list that could grow from under 200,000 to more than 5 million.
Throughout Trump’s presidential campaign, he has promised to execute “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Beyond promising workplace raids and giant detention “camps,” Trump hasn’t released specific plans for how his mass deportations would work. However, it’s likely that many granular aspects of a mass monitoring, detention, and deportation program would be planned by private companies contracting with ICE.
ICE’s recent notice asks interested companies to send specific details about how they would store location data and personal information, where their office locations would be, how they would staff agents, and what technology they have for remote surveillance, among other details. Currently, ICE uses a combination of ankle monitors and GPS-enabled smartwatches and smartphone apps to remotely monitor people. It also uses apps with facial recognition for “biometric” check-ins.
The notice says companies must have facilities with “suitably large intake rooms” for people being enrolled in ICE surveillance. They also must have the “ability to perform mass-scale intakes as required by unforeseeable events.”
Contractors would be facilitating ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, which is a way for ICE to monitor these undocumented or unnaturalized people without placing them in a detention facility. ISAP is meant especially for people who have been in the United States for some period of time and already have a house, apartment, or other residence. ISAP has flourished under President Biden, who has more than doubled the number of participants since December 2020, putting the current total at almost 200,000 people.
For ICE, according to the November notice, the program offers “considerable cost savings” compared to detention. So even if Trump follows through on his promise of mass detention, it’s likely that ISAP would be a significant aspect of any mass deportation program.