Surveillance Technology and Immigration

Immigration is a subject that can be hard to navigate because of how personal it can be. Some people don’t think about immigration often and some think about it everyday, it all depends on personal circumstances. As a whole however, the technologies created to be implemented within immigration enforcement are very rarely the focal point.

Recently, the technology used, or more specifically, the company that creates technology used in this case was seen in the news. Palantir, a software company, was hired by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to create a new artificial intelligence system to track immigrants’ movements (Hubbard, 2025). This tool would be called ImmigrationOS and has three components to it.

Targeting and enforcement prioritization: A goal would be to help ICE make faster decisions on who should be removed first. Priority would be given to “violent criminals” and people who overstayed their visas. However, what data or criteria would be used to identify “violent criminals” is unknown (Hubbard, 2025). Self-deportation tracking: Another goal for the software is its ability to monitor whether individuals are voluntarily leaving the United States (Hubbard, 2025). Immigration lifecycle management: The last goal would be to create a faster and more efficient deportation process, from when the person is identified to when they are deported (Hubbard, 2025).

Because the company has been hired by the U.S. government, they are given access to government databases. These databases hold data including passport records, social security files, IRS tax data, and license-plate reader. This can seem really scary that such large companies have such large amounts of personal data for everyone in the United States. Palantir is not the only company that holds data from the government. L3Harris and Booz Allen Hamilton both have contracts to supply ICE and support them in their operations (MacLellan, 2025). L3Harris is being paid $4.4 million to provide equipment to assist in locating targeted mobile handsets to investigate crimes and threats. Booz Allen Hamilton has a $51.9 million contract to assist ICE with a project referred to as RAVEN. With this contract, the defense contractor is supplying ICE with “design, development, and data analytics.” RAVEN is essentially a data repository and is managed by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit (MacLellan, 2025). While government contracts are no new thing, it is something to be aware of. Large companies are holding personal data and many Americans are completely unaware. While this is a concern, this has even larger implications for immigrants, including those that immigrated legally.

Ana Muniz - Borderland Circuitry

In her book, Borderland Circuitry, Ana Muniz touches on this idea that the borders have expanded. What she means by this is that because technology has become so ingrained in daily life, people are being watched regardless of whether they’re strictly at the border or not. Borders have expanded into this metaphysical concept where there is no longer a strict divide between borders as they almost blend together and anyone can be impacted by this no matter where they’re located. This creates a divided and further polarized society.

Ana Muniz talks about why this technology is so harmful to immigrants and their stories, saying that “Technology is created and programmed by people and thus, in the hands of law enforcement, it has functioned in service of the destruction of flesh.” This is so important and goes to show that the development of this technology does play such a vital role in the enforcement of immigration. It starts with people and it ends with them, keeping them as the focal point of the development of technology can be a simple way to protect them and keep them safe.

Ethical Lenses Involved:

This scenario has such a largely negative impact on a disproportionate part of the population and it’s important to consider that this portion of the population is already marginalized. Looking at the use of technology within immigration, how do the different ethical lenses change the view of the situation? There are six different lenses: virtue, care/feminist, utilitarianism, duty/deontological, natural law, and contractarianism.

However, many of these lens do not fit as well as the others. The situation is so negative and the frameworks are difficult to apply because they are not as negative. With that, the care lens, utilitarian lens, and duty lens fit best. With the virtue lens, the guiding principle is clear. “What would a virtuous person do?” The virtue lens has a focus on honesty and integrity. For this case to fit into the lens, the technology used and implemented should be transparent. Privacy should be protected and people should be able to trust in both the technology used, the companies creating it, and the way the government is deploying it.

Care

For the care lens, the focus is on others. In this lens, there is a balance between care and justice with a guiding question of: “How can we meet the needs of particular others?” To fit into this lens well, it is important to consider the impact of surveillance technology on immigrants, refugees, and non-citizens. It is also important to consider the impact of surveillance technology on the general public. From this understanding, it is imperative to think about how they might be interacting with the technology and ensure that their privacy is protected and that they are cared for. It is important, within the care lens, to minimize any harm that may occur and guarantee that all are cared for. This might look like creating policies or safeguards to protect refugees such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Nalbandian, 2022).

Utilitarian

In the utilitarian lens, the focus is creating the most good for the most people. So how can this be done within surveillance technology in immigration applications? If AI and surveillance technologies were used as a tool rather than as the sole decision-maker. If technology were to be the sole decision-maker, it would be crucial to ensure that the factors being used to decide were not biased. In the documentary, Coded Bias, the research by Joy Buolamwini speaks in-depth about the bias within facial recognition technology and the social repercussions that this technology has (Kantayya). To deal with this, there are non-profit organizations speaking out on the subject, working to alert the public of this bias, collaborating with governments.

Duty

The duty lens has a focus on the respect of autonomy, something that might be a struggle to have with surveillance technology implemented. However, another aspect that plays a role within the duty lens is confidentiality. This lens would encourage the privacy and protection of people’s personal data. Natural law is another lens that focuses on moral principles, but it focuses more on what is implicit in nature. What is human nature? This is another lens that is difficult to identify because of technology and surveillance is not inherently human nature. This lens directly conflicts with immigration enforcement. Immigration enforcement causes fear and trauma, it does not create justice but damages it. The final lens, the contractarianism lens, is about what is fair. Once again, this lens is in direct conflict with surveillance technology being implemented in immigration enforcement applications. This is simply because surveillance technology is not fair and the act of immigration enforcement isn’t either.

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