Our Work By Program Area
Combatting Tech Surveillance
-
End ICE Digital Prisons
ICE continues to expand the deportation pipeline. Alternatives to Detention (also known as the ISAP program) are tracking our immigrant community and increasing detention. Check out our latest work to fight e-carceration.
-
Halt Data Brokers From Selling Data to ICE
Private companies like Lexis Nexis are helping ICE and police surveill and gather data from our community without consent. It’s time we disrupt their profit making scheme that puts lives in danger of deportation and separation.
-
Fight Facial Recognition Surveillance Intimidation
As tech continues to grow and become part of our everyday life, police and immigration enforcement are also incorporating it into their tactics to fulfill their deportation agenda. Data brokers and private companies, like Clearview AI, are profiting from this surveillance. We’re working to curb their power.
-
Border Militarization
A “digital border wall” has been steadily built along the U.S.-Mexico border for the last four presidential administrations, overseen by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. Check out our resources, sign on letters, and latest advocacy efforts to tear it down.
-
Protect Driver Data Privacy
Policing including immigration enforcement is going high tech. States and private companies acquire and collect more and more data about all of us. ICE views DMV data as a major source of information for conducting arrests and raids. Read our report on ways to curtail data sharing.
-
Reining in AI Surveillance
Artificial Intelligence’s growing influence has become a core part of surveillance technology. In the hands of law enforcement agencies, AI can exacerbate surveillance and exclusion on Black, brown, and im/migrants communities.
-
Defunding the Dragnet: Policy Proposals to Limit Government Surveillance
Local, state, and federal law enforcement, as well as private companies, are rapidly expanding the use and scope of surveillance technology, leading to abusive criminalization and reducing privacy.
-
Biometrics Surveillance
We’re working to unmask the companies and profits that are fueling the creation of biometric surveillance the government is putting into place to monitor our communities. Check out our work around invasive surveillance being used by DHS like EDDIE and HART.
-
COVID-19 FOIA Surveillance Project
New policies stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic are making it far easier for government and private companies to collect and share vast amounts of personal information on us. Technology companies used by DHS and local police to track down and criminalize Black, Brown and immigrant communities are being used to expand the surveillance dragnet.
State and Local Work
GEORGIA
Eyes on Atlanta Report Download →
North Carolina State Bill Analysis: Anti-Immigrant SB 101 Encourages Unconstitutional Imprisonment and Harms Community Safety Download →
Detainer Lawsuit: Chavez v. Carmichael Learn More →
CALIFORNIA
Long Beach Surveillance Report Download →
Clearview AI Lawsuit View →
COLORADO
Sabotaging Sanctuary Report Download →
The Digital Deportation Machine: How Surveillance Technology Undermines Chicago’s Welcoming City Policy Read Report →
Cook County Surveillance Work: Data Broker FOIA Fact Sheet, Report, Lawsuit Against LexisNexis View →
ILLINOIS
The Silicon Hills Have Eyes: How ARIC Fusion Center Surveillance Makes Austin Less Safe Read Report →
Fact Sheet: Operation Lone Star View→
Austin Surveillance Work: Reports and ALPR Fact Sheet View→
TEXAS
DC Law Enforcement Surveillance Technology Read Report →
Sanctuary or Snare? Sanctuary Policies in the District of Columbia Read Report →
ICE Out of DC Coalition & The Sanctuary Values Act Follow →
WASHINGTON D.C.
Protection and Defense of the Movement
We work to advocate and litigate on behalf of organizers who face retaliation by the government, including ICE. You can find our retaliation related lawsuits and other advocacy resources here:
Dismantling Detention, Deportation, and Incarceration
-
Cri-immigration Work with IJN
We are a founding member of The Immigrant Justice Network, a coalition of national and grassroots organizations demanding the disentanglement of the criminal legal and immigration systems that propagate mass incarceration and mass deportation in the United States.
-
Ending Migrant Prosecutions
Over two decades, there has been dramatic growth in the number of individuals sentenced in federal courts primarily due to the enforcement of particular immigration offenses: unlawful entry and unlawful reentry into the U.S. Immigrants charged with unlawful reentry — a federal crime — are alleged to have entered or attempted to enter the U.S. illegally more than once. Many of those charged with unlawful reentry were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol.
-
ICE Intelligence Centers
As our communities increasingly rely on technologies for communication, employment, and essential services, our data has become the subject of increased surveillance by corporations and governments. For more than a decade, (ICE) has been building a mass surveillance machine that relies on big data corporations and state-sponsored surveillance to locate, prosecute, and deport individuals. This system of surveillance and criminalization inhibits people’s ability to access much-needed health, legal and social services and exercise their right to protest and assemble for fear of being detained and deported.