ICE Digital Prisons

Over the last few years, the U.S. government has drastically increased its use of electronic surveillance of immigrants as an ill-conceived supposed “alternative” to detention. The truth is that “e-carceration” is a dangerous extension of our brick and mortar prisons, expanding the enormity of ICE’s detention and deportation machine. These digital surveillance programs—from digital ankle shackles, to smart apps, to geolocation tracking— vastly increase the total number of individuals under ICE’s supervision, put undue burdens on people’s physical bodies and lives, all the while generating extensive added revenue for for-profit companies.

In addition to the physical pain reported by nearly all people forced to wear digital ankle shackles, constant and restrictive digital surveillance takes a dangerous toll on mental health. Social stigma from electronic monitoring makes it difficult for immigrants to keep jobs and maintain relationships with loved ones, furthering isolation, and even causing many to report suicidal thoughts.

Today, more than 200,000 people are surveilled under ICE’s electronic monitoring program, and the Biden Administration is expanding to cities across the country a program that surveils families seeking asylum, imposing house arrest through home curfews on them. The time to act is now.

Legal Efforts

Update: Due to our lawsuit, ICE has released thousands of pages of records responsive to our lawsuit. A summary of key findings from the ICE FOIA records is available here. The full FOIA records are available on this page and you can also view the original FOIA complaint we filed here.

Advocacy

Congressional Letter: Led by Representative Rashida Tlaib, 25 members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on February 22, 2022, to express concern over the drastic increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP. The letter was signed by 176 organizations.

Resources

  • ICE FOIA Lawsuit: Fact Sheet: This document summarizes key findings on ICE's electronic monitoring program from ICE’s own records obtained through our FOIA lawsuit and reveals the alarming scale of surveillance in ICE’s program. (Spanish version)

  • Tracked and Trapped: Experiences from ICE Digital Prisons: Over the last year, the Biden Administration has drastically expanded ICE’s so-called ISAP program which subjects people to constant surveillance through the use of ankle shackles, voice, and facial recognition. A new report highlights the excruciating toll that ICE electronic monitoring takes on immigrant communities, underscoring the stories of folks forced to enroll in the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program, also known as the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP).

  • ICE Digital Prisons Report: A report from Mijente and Just Futures Law that provides an overview of ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (AT) program–namely its Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP)-and the next generation of intrusive surveillance technologies deployed as alternatives to detention, including voice recognition, facial recognition, risk assessment algorithms, and biometric wearables.