During the height of President Donald Trump’s winter immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis, a new AI-driven “alien” targeting app appeared on the phones of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement deportation officers.
asserted
app → drive → officers
Created by tech giant Palantir, a CIA-backed firm known for data mining and using artificial intelligence for everything from warfighting to “predictive policing,” the ELITE app helps ICE target immigrants and issues a “confidence score” for how accurate the information on a target is.
asserted
information → create → target
The app analyzes data from government agencies and other sources, producing dossiers on targets, compiling them into lists, and mapping their locations.
asserted
app → analyze → locations
The debut of ELITE — Enhanced Lead Identification and Targeting — came just as ICE added over 12,000 employees through an expedited hiring surge, placing a badge and a gun in the hands of new recruits in record time, thanks to cuts to ICE’s training curriculum.
asserted
ICE → come → curriculum
Thousands of the new ICE hires, then, were able to hit the streets without cleared background checks, according to reporting by Reuters in early 2026.
uncertain
Thousands → hit → 2026
The hiring spree at ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, coupled with the powerful new handheld technology of the ELITE app, created potential civil liberties nightmares and threats to national security, according to ICE whistleblowers, former Department of Homeland Security officials, and legal experts who spoke to The Intercept.
uncertain
who → couple → Intercept
“No one should have been hired by DHS before background reviews were completed.
asserted
reviews → hire → DHS
This never happened in previous administrations,” said Mary Ellen Callahan, former chief of staff to the deputy secretary of Homeland Security.
asserted
Callahan → happen → Security
“Furthermore, giving the newly hired ICE ERO staff access to sensitive databases such as ELITE threatens public safety by allowing non-vetted teams to access and potentially misuse data.”
asserted
teams → give → data
The ELITE app, Callahan said, did not go through the usual process government tools undergo to prevent abuses and ensure privacy rights.
asserted
tools → say → rights
“It’s one of the first applications they give new officers so they can start working,” said one ICE deportation officer who came through the hiring surge.
asserted
who → ’ → surge
“You can access it without full background clearance.”
asserted
You → access → clearance
“Some of these guys should’ve never been hired, let alone have access to the information on ELITE,” the officer, who asked for anonymity to protect their livelihood, told The Intercept.
asserted
who → hire → Intercept
Every ICE deportation officer is issued a phone, where the ELITE app comes standard, according to five ICE officials who spoke to The Intercept.
uncertain
who → issue → Intercept
(Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor Palantir responded to requests for comment.)
asserted
Department → respond → comment
The five ICE officials, who each work in different regions across the country, said deportation officers without completed background checks continue to work in all their jurisdictions, some of whom were hired nearly a year ago.
asserted
some → work → whom
No Privacy Assessment
ELITE’s user guide identifies a dozen distinct sources that the app draws from.
asserted
app → identify → that
The databases include sensitive data sets like addresses, criminal histories, immigration records, court rulings, and other personal information about both immigrants and U.S. citizens.
asserted
databases → include → immigrants
Much of that information would constitute what the government calls PII, or personally identifiable information.
asserted
government → constitute → what
According to a Department of Homeland Security document that catalogs the agency’s use of artificial intelligence, the ELITE app does involve PII.
uncertain
app → accord → PII
A 2002 law, however, says that government agencies must conduct and publish the findings of a “privacy impact assessment” for “all new or substantially changed technology that collects, maintains, or disseminates personally identifiable information (PII),” according to a Justice Department summary of the statute.
uncertain
that → say → statute
The processes are designed to assess how technology affects personal privacy and outline what safeguards are in place to ensure accountability if systems are misused.
asserted
systems → design → accountability
Yet the Department of Homeland Security privacy office hasn’t published an assessment for ELITE, according to Callahan, the former Homeland Security official, who also served as the department’s chief privacy officer.
uncertain
who → publish → officer
“The DHS privacy office should have worked with ICE to publish a privacy impact assessment,” said Callahan, noting a general lack of productivity by the privacy office.
asserted
Callahan → work → office
“In fact, the DHS privacy office has only published one PIA all year.
asserted
office → publish → PIA
In comparison, I published 228 PIAs in my three-and-a-half years as privacy officer.
asserted
I → publish → officer
The failure to conduct a privacy impact assessment has a profound impact on transparency and accountability, the very aspects of privacy policy the E-Government Act of 2002 was intended to regulate.
asserted
Act → conduct → 2002
“This is not a technicality,” said Clare Garvie, a privacy lawyer and deputy director of technology policy at the New York University Law School’s Policing Project.
asserted
Garvie → say → Project
“PIAs are an essential component of transparency and privacy governance, they are how the public understands what information is collected about us, how long it is kept, who can use it, and what remedies exist if it is wrong or subject to misuse.”
asserted
it → understand → misuse
“If ICE can’t fulfill this prerequisite,” Garvie said, “I lack confidence in its ability to use the tool in a lawful, privacy-protective manner in the field.”
asserted
I → fulfill → field
The Department of Homeland Security site for cataloging its uses of AI does list a privacy impact assessment on its page for ELITE, but the assessment is not actually for the ELITE app.
asserted
assessment → catalog → app
Instead, the link goes to a 2019 privacy assessment for ICE’s Enforcement Integrated Database.
asserted
link → go → Database
The Enforcement Integrated Database is just one of the systems ELITE incorporates into its searches, meaning the PIA only scratches the surface of what personally identifying information appears in ELITE and how the app organizes the data.
asserted
app → incorporate → data
“The document DHS points to as fulfilling this obligation was updated in 2019, years before it acquired ELITE,” said Garvie.
asserted
Garvie → point → ELITE
“This PIA completely fails to describe the app’s data sources, its AI analysis, or the inferences it produces that are used to focus immigration investigations and removal operations.”
asserted
that → fail → investigations
Public concerns surrounding the incorporation of AI surveillance in law enforcement — including ICE’s new AI initiative to combat doxing of its staff — are reaching a boiling point in the U.S. today, leaving some ICE officials concerned.
asserted
concerns → surround → officials
“I know I sound crazy, but this is 1984 shit,” said another ICE official familiar with ELITE who requested anonymity to protect their job.
asserted
who → know → job
“ELITE is used on illegal immigrants right now but can easily be used on Americans.”
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
asserted
WE → use → Americans
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
asserted
seeing → see → government
Court orders are being ignored.
asserted
orders → ignore → ?
…and 32 more, not listed.
