Wired

10/03/2025

UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION authorities are moving to dramatically expand their social media surveillance, with plans to hire nearly 30 contractors to sift through posts, photos, and messages—raw material to be transformed into intelligence for deportation raids and arrests.

Federal contracting records reviewed by WIRED show that the agency is seeking private vendors to run a multiyear surveillance program out of two of its little-known targeting centers. The program envisions stationing nearly 30 private analysts at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in Vermont and Southern California. Their job: Scour Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms, converting posts and profiles into fresh leads for enforcement raids.

Together, these teams would operate as intelligence arms of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division. They will receive tips and incoming cases, research individuals online, and package the results into dossiers that could be used by field offices to plan arrests.

The scope of information contractors are expected to collect is broad. Draft instructions specify open-source intelligence: public posts, photos, and messages on platforms from Facebook to Reddit to TikTok. Analysts may also be tasked with checking more obscure or foreign-based sites, such as Russia’s VKontakte.

They would also be armed with powerful commercial databases such as LexisNexis Accurint and Thomson Reuters CLEAR, which knit together property records, phone bills, utilities, vehicle registrations, and other personal details into searchable files.

The plan goes beyond staffing. ICE also wants algorithms, asking contractors to spell out how they might weave artificial intelligence into the hunt—a solicitation that mirrors other recent proposals. The agency has also set aside more than a million dollars a year to arm analysts with the latest surveillance tools.

Earlier this year, The Intercept revealed that ICE had floated plans for a system that could automatically scan social media for “negative sentiment” toward the agency and flag users thought to show a “proclivity for violence.” Procurement records previously reviewed by 404 Media identified software used by the agency to build dossiers on flagged individuals, compiling personal details, family links, and even using facial recognition to connect images across the web. Observers warned it was unclear how such technology could distinguish genuine threats from political speech.

ICE’s main investigative database, built by Palantir Technologies, already uses algorithmic analysis to filter huge populations and generate leads. The new contract would funnel fresh social media and open-source inputs directly into that system, further automating the process.