President Donald Trump has a wealth of technology at his disposal to track, classify, and monitor immigrants as he assigns federal officers to carry out plans for mass deportations at the beginning of his administration.
The New York Times revealed this week that since 2020, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Citizen and Immigration Services have spent $7.8 billion on immigration technologies from 263 different companies. These technologies include fast DNA testing techniques, software for tracking position, ankle monitoring, and biometric tracking like fingerprint scanning, voice analysis, and facial recognition.
In addition to hiring data analytics companies to store and sort through vast amounts of data acquired on immigrants currently in the United States, the agencies have access to investigative tools that can scan through emails, text messages, and other files on locked phones.
The Trump administration is hardly the first to have access to these tools. Many technologies were created for drug trafficking and other criminal investigations, starting after the 9/11 attacks, and a large portion of the funding for these tech contracts started during President Joe Biden’s administration.
According to New York-based immigration lawyer Marina Shepelsky, Trump’s raids are targeting four types of immigrants. According to her, the primary emphasis would probably go to people with criminal records, but there are also targets for those who entered the country during the Biden administration or those who have a judge’s deportation order.
According to Shepelsky, everyone who is in the country illegally without status—that is, without a visa—or with a visa that has expired is at risk.
Although the Department of Homeland Security lists the several applications of AI technology, Shepelsky stated that she believes it will primarily be used to search through immigration records and compare information from criminal histories, visa applications, and social media platforms.
According to her, predictive AI modeling is also probably being used by federal investigators in a variety of contexts, such as determining the probability of criminal activity or visa overstays. After gathering known data, such as criminal history, immigration status, compliance history, and caregiver status, the government assigns each individual a hurricane score. A machine learning system that determines whether an individual may evade immigration proceedings determines the score, which is scored from 1 to 5.
Shepelsky issues a warning about the systemic biases that AI algorithms may generate, stating that they may unfairly target particular groups, hence raising the possibility of racial profiling.
AI can streamline several aspects of the immigration process, according to Peter Salib, an assistant professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center. “AI can probably help you do that well if your goal is to target immigrants who have committed serious crimes, which was policy under the Biden and Obama administrations,” he said.
According to Salib, AI can significantly assist you in achieving your objective and lowering expenses for those who don’t need to be involved in enforcement.
However, Salib noted that purpose and access to these technologies are two separate things. These capabilities were available to the Biden administration in previous years, but they were not used to organize the extensive deportation campaigns that Trump is currently implementing.
According to Salib, even if you’re afraid of a slippery slope toward utilizing technology improperly, it’s unclear that you can avoid that situation by refusing to use it while you’re in an administration with good intentions.
AI has the ability to enhance certain aspects of border security and citizenship procedures, despite ethical problems, according to Shepelsky. It has expedited the processing of high-demand employment visas, sped up the detection of fake documents, and processed visa applications more quickly.
According to Salib, technology will probably continue to be a component of Trump’s early administration agenda, including his immigration policy.
According to Salib, it’s the world we live in today. Furthermore, the decision we have is more about policy than the technology available to those who wish to implement regulations.
