ICE’s $28.7 billion budget fuels unprecedented domestic surveillance expansion

Massive funding increase is being used to build one of the largest surveillance apparatuses ever

”Every move you make, every step you take …”. So sang the rock group The Police. It was just a song then, but it’s a way of life now. Drop the “Pol” and you get ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, best known for kidnaping citizens and immigrants off the streets and out of their schools, homes and workplaces.

Not content with abusing and subjugating Americans, ICE is also embarking on an aggressive surveillance technology acquisition campaign following a dramatic budget increase that has nearly tripled its resources to $28.7 billion for 2025, with an additional $56.25 billion allocated over the next three years.

The funding surge places ICE among the world’s most well-resourced organizations, with a budget comparable to the military expenditures of Ukraine and Israel. The agency is now positioned to create what experts describe as one of the most comprehensive domestic surveillance systems in American history, according to a study published by EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Existing surveillance already reaches three-quarters of Americans

ICE’s surveillance capabilities already extend far beyond immigration enforcement. According to a 2022 Georgetown Law Center for Privacy and Technology report, the agency has scanned driver’s license photos of one in three American adults and maintains access to license data for three in four adults.

The agency tracks vehicle movements in cities where 75 percent of adults live and can locate the same proportion of Americans through utility records. Between 2008 and 2021, ICE spent approximately $2.8 billion building this surveillance network by accessing data from private companies and state and local government agencies, the report found

New budget dwarfs previous surveillance spending

With the 2025 budget representing 10 times what ICE spent on surveillance over the previous 13 years, the agency has begun signing contracts with private companies for expanded capabilities including location tracking, social media monitoring, facial recognition, spyware, and phone surveillance.

The surveillance expansion occurs as ICE has broadened its enforcement targets beyond undocumented immigrants. The agency has detained and deported people with work permits, asylum seekers, permanent residents, naturalized citizens, and even natural-born U.S. citizens.

Enforcement scope expands under current administration

ICE has deported more than 1.5 million people under the Trump administrations, including 600,000 in just the first year of the current term, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. Another 1.6 million people have reportedly self-deported.

The human cost has been severe. In the past year alone, 4,250 people detained by ICE have gone missing, and 31 have died in custody or while being detained. By comparison, 24 people died in ICE custody during the entire Biden administration.

Agency targets political dissent

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons recently stated that his agency is dedicated to targeting Antifa and left-wing organizations, signaling that surveillance efforts extend beyond immigration enforcement to monitoring Americans based on their political activities.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has warned that surveillance infrastructure built under any administration will eventually be used by future administrations with different priorities and potentially against different populations.

Privacy advocates sound alarm

The EFF recently published guidance on tracking homeland security spending and compiled a dataset of companies selling technology to DHS components. The organization argues that a surveillance-industrial complex and democratic society are fundamentally incompatible regardless of which political party holds power.

The rapid expansion of ICE’s surveillance capabilities raises questions about privacy protections for all Americans, as the agency’s data collection reaches far beyond its stated immigration enforcement mission and into the daily lives of citizens who have never had contact with the immigration system.

The risk is everywhere

While it’s virtually impossible to live in today’s world without leaving digital footprints, there are steps you can take to minimize the risk in these areas:

Telephones

Whenever it can, ICE gets its hands on your phone, primarily at border crossings. Thanks to a contract with a company called Cellebrite, it can unlock phones and then can take a complete image of all the data on the phone, including apps, location history, photos, notes, call records, text messages, and even Signal and WhatsApp messages. Another program, Graykey, helps it break into your phone wirelessly.

What to do: Keep your phone up to date and use a strong alphanumeric password. Better yet, keep it turned off when you’re not using it.

Internet

ICE has a warehouse full of software that it uses to keep track of your whereabouts (assuming you’re a person of interest to them). Mostly, the programs assemble info from data brokers, the websites and ad mongers who gather and sell your personal data. It’s also boosting spending on a 24/7 social media monitoring office, to track what everybody’s up to.

What to do: Set your social media acounts to private, use a pseudonym or simply delete your social media accounts altogether. You used to live perfectly well without them, remember?

Street-level snooping

ICE and other, more legitimate, law enforcement agencies now have software that tracks you as you drive — reading your license plate and matching it to such obvious data as your driver’s license, auto registration and insurance. But it can also tell a lot else about you, including political activities, credit score and criminal record, if any. And don’t even start thinking about facial-recognition software.

What to do: Short of bicycling and taking the bus or train, there’s not much you can do about this.

There’s a lot more to know about the details of how your right to privacy is fading away. EFF has more details on its website.