How ICE Is Working With MegaCorp Palantir To Revive The Spirit Of The Patriot Act
ICE’s ImmigrationOS Uses Tracking And Algorithmic Targeting To Expand Enforcement Powers — echoing the post-9/11 surveillance playbook.
According to a contract justification included in a federal register published last week, it reveals ICE plans to pay $30 million to mega corporation Palantir for a software tool that would provide “near real-time visibility” on those self-deporting from the United States.
The document reveals that Palantir’s tool would help ICE choose who to deport, focusing on those overstaying their visas. The contract specifies that the Immigration Lifecycle Operating System, or ImmigrationOS, will purportedly lessen time and resources when tracking and apprehending immigrants based on ICE enforcement.
Those living in the U.S. with expired visas are listed alongside “violent criminals” and “affiliates of known transnational criminal organizations” as highest priority to the software.
Palantir has been an ICE contractor since 2011. The document suggests that Palantir aims to provide brand-new capabilities to ICE far beyond the scope of anything previously offered.
Over the last several weeks, Palantir employees have worked to increase ICE capacity to track immigrants already given a final order of removal and will continue to fast-track a prototype of the ImmigrationOS software for ICE.
Per the federal register, it details that ICE “urgently requires the following system capabilities and outcomes”:
“Targeting and enforcement prioritization…” including “streamlining selection and apprehension… of illegal aliens…”
“Self-deportation tracking…” including “near real-tme visibility… to inform policy… and accurately report… alien departures from the United States".
“Immigration lifecycle process” including “streamlined end to end immigration lifecycle from identification to removal…”
Notably, ImmigrationOS is being built to support Executive Orders 14159 (“Protecting the American People Against Invasion”) and 13773 (“Enforcing Federal Law With Respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking”).
ICE needs “software licenses, configuration services, engineering services, and hosting services” from Palantir and hopes to obtain a prototype of ImmigrationOS from them before September 25, 2025.
No matter how you may feel about immigration, one should consider the uncanny similarities between ImmigrationOS and the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act was signed by George W. Bush in 2001 and began the digital erosion of an American’s right to privacy.
The Patriot Act expanded the surveillance abilities of law enforcement agencies, granting the power to tap domestic and international phones - as well as allowing interagency communication to allow federal agencies to use all available resources and more effectively combat terrorism.
In 2013, Edward Snowden leaked documents exposing numerous surveillance programs, such as the PRISM electronic data mining program which collected millions of telephone records of U.S. customers from Verizon.
These historical trends warn us that surveillance infrastructure, once created, rarely vanishes - it expands, adapts, and endures. ImmigrationOS may start with visa overstays, but it will potentially warp into something further.
As a nation, we must ask: when does defending our borders begin to dismantle the freedoms they’re meant to protect? Who will be held accountable when that line is crossed?