US authorities pursue illegal immigrants through “social media”

US officials said that Instagram accounts may soon be used to justify deportations of illegal immigrants.

This comes at a time when the US Immigration Service is seeking to hire dozens of analysts to collect personal information from posts, comments, and messages on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, X, and other social media platforms, which will be used as evidence and intelligence information to carry out raids against immigrants.

This initiative, part of a series of contracts recently concluded with technology companies, seeks to expand the ability of the US Immigration Service to monitor people through “social media” to levels that threaten to violate constitutional rights.

The US Department of Homeland Security has submitted a request to private companies to support them with at least 30 analysts at the US Immigration Service control centers in the city of Williston, in the state of Vermont, near Canada, and in Santa Ana, in the state of California.

The request aims for a 24-hour monitoring process using the latest technologies, including artificial intelligence, to support efforts to increase deportations. The government requires “information generation and analysis services” to fulfill the immigration enforcement mission of identifying persons who pose a threat to national security.

Information will be collected from commercial databases and law enforcement servers, as well as other publicly available sources, including open media and social media platforms, which will be integrated into US immigration’s work.

Daily detention quotas

Leaked documents indicate that artificial intelligence will increase the efficiency of identifying individuals. This initiative is part of the historic campaign by the administration of US President Donald Trump on immigration, which promised mass deportations and set detention quotas of up to 3,000 people per day, according to several reports, but this number has not yet been reached.

However, as a result of Trump’s immigration policy, the Immigration Service has become the most powerful agency in the federal government, with access to data from other agencies, such as the IRS and the Department of Health.

Moreover, the Immigration Service received between $70 and $170 billion from Trump’s tax reform passed last summer, which allocates $5.9 billion to “new technology development.”

By comparison, the FBI has just over $10 billion annually. With the money already available, ICE has ramped up its wide-ranging surveillance efforts, including on social media, taking advantage of the massive reach of private technology companies.

This has raised concerns among civil rights and immigrant rights advocates about the risks this practice poses to freedom of expression, privacy, and democracy.

Undermining democracy

“Almost anything people post on social media can be used against them,” said lawyer Alberto Fox, who founded STOP, a civil rights advocacy group focused on surveillance of government departments. Any post in a WhatsApp group or on a Facebook page could put them under the radar of the Immigration Authority.”

He added: “The way the Immigration Authority uses social media to monitor people undermines democracy,” adding: “They use many tools to access information that people think is private.”

According to Fox, social media accounts restricted to approved followers only provide a false sense of privacy, because “the immigration agency and other law enforcement agencies have created vast networks of fake accounts to collect information.”

Privacy guarantee

Many people use the encrypted WhatsApp application, without realizing that the information of all their communications is available to the US Immigration Service and other law enforcement agencies, according to Fox.

For his part, a WhatsApp spokesman, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that the application is designed to ensure privacy, with comprehensive encryption “so that no one outside the chat, not even (WhatsApp) or (Meta), can read, listen to, or share your personal messages,” stressing that “WhatsApp” does not keep records of who corresponds or calls.

It is noteworthy that the US Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration Service did not respond to a request for comment on this report. About “El Pais”

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Government contracts

The social media monitoring service offering is the latest in a series of contracts with technology companies aimed at expanding the US Immigration Service’s surveillance capabilities. This includes a $30 million contract with Palantir, co-founded by the controversial right-wing billionaire and former partner of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, to develop an immigration operating system, an application that uses artificial intelligence to locate and locate illegal immigrants.

Palantir has secured government contracts worth more than $900 million since President Donald Trump began his second term, according to the New York Times. Studies indicate that these contracts show an increase in the use of technology, artificial intelligence and social media analytics to enhance the immigration authority’s surveillance infrastructure across the country.

A report issued by the Migrant Defense Organization, Mianti, entitled “Who is Behind the Immigration Department?” warned. Technology and Data Companies Fueling Deportations,” in 2023, reported that US authorities are increasingly using cloud infrastructure, data analytics and social media software provided by private providers.

• The initiative is part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, which promised mass deportations and set detention quotas of up to 3,000 people per day.

• Round-the-clock monitoring using the latest technologies, including artificial intelligence, to support efforts to increase deportations.

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Be careful

The lawyer specializing in immigration cases, Ismael Labrador, said that many of his immigrant clients expressed concern about their posts on social media, noting that after the raid on a nightclub in Miami, one of the clients asked him whether a photo he posted on the Facebook platform in the club might alert the authorities.

Labrador added that he warned his clients about asylum seekers who are “harassed” by the US government about what they publish, because “any comment that is not in line with the principles of this administration may be misinterpreted.”

For his part, Thomas Kennedy, of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said that government contractors monitoring social media “will check to see if anyone has posted a political opinion, or something exaggerated,” to conduct what they call a “search trip,” which is a large-scale, baseless search without a specific motive.

While the presence of immigration agents in the country’s cities exacerbates the situation, pushing immigrants, both documented and undocumented, to the margins, the shadow of immigration authorities now also looms over cyberspace.

• Many immigrants expressed their concerns about their posts on social media.

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Independent audits

A report issued by the immigrant advocacy organization Mianti showed how social media fuels a framework that expands the US Immigration Service’s ability to contract with potential clients.

In another, more recent report, the American Immigration Council highlights the need for independent audits to oversee these AI-powered systems, which may make mistakes with serious consequences.

The Council, an immigrant advocacy organization, warned that people could be detained, lose their legal status, or even be unjustly deported, adding that “some Palantir engineers themselves have expressed concerns about the ethical burden of designing these tools.” They argue that building private systems without adequate oversight, capable of mass surveillance, crosses a dangerous line from protecting the civil liberties that underpin democracy to blatantly undermining them.

Lawyer Alberto Fox, who founded the surveillance technology watchdog group STOP, emphasized the “intrusive nature” of this technology and the danger it could pose to migrants.

“We know that people are going to be systematically targeted because of their political beliefs, their religion, things that our Constitution is supposed to protect,” he said.