Seeking to Ramp Up Deportations, the Trump Administration Quietly Expands a Vast Web of Data
The Migration Policy Institute in Muzaffar Chishti and Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, Seeking to Ramp Up Deportations, the Trump Administration Quietly Expands a Vast Web of Data write that U.S. immigration authorities have been provided data to assist the Trump administration ramping up removals.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been granted access to government databases—including ones containing information about all U.S. residents’ taxes, health, benefits receipt, and addresses—as well as data held by private companies.
This article states that he Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), launched by Elon Musk, has played a role in this data-leveraging mission, accessing sensitive databases across government agencies and breaking down long-standing silos erected for operational and privacy reasons. And the software company Palantir, a longtime ICE contractor, has been awarded a new contract initially for $30 million to build a “streamlined” database to aid immigration enforcement.
KJ