Big Tech Helping ICE Track Immigrants

Multiple technology companies are assisting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with tracking undocumented immigrants, making millions through government contracts in the process. They’re doing so even as they denounce President Trump’s immigration policies.Microsoft was the first company to face public outrage for what CEO Satya Nadella defended as a “standard IT contract” with ICE. The contract’s existence was revealed in a five-month-old blog post, in which Microsoft boasted of its work helping ICE “process data on edge devices or utilize deep learning capabilities to accelerate facial recognition and identification.”

The “standard agreement” explanation, however, wasn’t satisfactory for the 100 employees who signed an open letter, published in The New York Times, demanding the contract’s cancellation. As The Verge reported Tuesday, “Microsoft employees are now calling on Microsoft to cancel its ICE contracts, create a policy to not work with clients that violate international human rights law, and commit to transparency around Microsoft government contracts.”

Microsoft may have been the first to receive widespread media coverage, but as NBC reported Wednesday night, Hewlett-Packard Enterprises, Thomson Reuters, Palantir, and Motorola Solutions also have contracts with the immigration agency.

“The contracts,” NBC points out, “highlight how technology companies, many of which have developed advanced data analysis and tracking abilities, are putting their innovations to work with the U.S. government in ways that are often not visible to the public.”

They’re also lucrative. As NBC continues, “Palantir, whose chairman, Peter Thiel, is one of nine members on the board of Facebook, took in more than $4.9 million from ICE on May 30, part of a $39 million contract that began in 2015.”

NBC writes, “According to a government database search, the contract goes toward ‘operations and maintenance’ of Falcon, Palantir’s proprietary intelligence database that tracks immigrants’ records and relationships.”

Facebook, by contrast, has been openly critical of the Trump administration’s family separation policies. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote on Tuesday, “We need to stop this policy right now.” Other CEO’s have also spoken out. Apple’s Tim Cook  also spoke out against Trump’s policies, telling the Irish Times, “I think that what’s happening is inhumane. It needs to stop.” AirBnB CEO Brian Chesky wrote on Twitter that “Ripping children from their parents’ arms is cruel. This policy must end.”

The mass media and information company Thomson Reuters, through its subsidiary Thomson Reuters Special Services, also has a $6.8 million contract with ICE. NBC reports that they had extensive competition: “The company beat out 13 other companies for the bid, including IBM, Booz Allen Hamilton, PricewaterhouseCoopers and LexisNexis.” The contract, “stipulates that Thomson Reuters will provide support for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations unit in its mission to locate, arrest and remove criminal aliens that pose a threat to public safety.’”

Palantir and Facebook declined to comment to NBC, but a spokesperson for Thomson Reuters was adamant that, as NBC reported, “Reuters’ newsgathering is ‘completely independent of any [of] our commercial relationships.’” The company did not comment on the family separation policy.

Hewlett Packard Enterprises, which signed a $75 million contract with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that oversees ICE, (both are under the Department of Homeland Security) to manage a network operations center. Hewlett Packard Enterprises has since merged with another company, Perspecta. Some operations remain separate, but the company declined to comment directly on the ICE contract. However, a spokesperson did say that they are “opposed to any policy that separates children from their families and urge the administration to change its policy to keep families together.”

Motorola has what NBC describes as an ongoing , $13.3 million “tactical communications program” with ICE, but has declined to comment.

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