Deportation via "ImmigrationOS": Trump's administration builds migrant software and gigantic database

Will this be the largest mass deportation in the country's history, as US President Trump has announced? In the background, IT experts are working on a massive project. Using dragnet searches, millions of people are to be located.

The US government is taking an aggressive approach to migration policy. IT experts at Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, aka Doge, are currently building a mega-database that combines information from various government agencies. Experts say the government could use this to track and monitor migrants. This would potentially affect all people without US citizenship, as well as those with passports, provided they have relatives without them.

It is estimated that approximately 14 million people in the United States are undocumented. Trump has signed sweeping executive orders to crack down on migrants and enable mass deportations. Fear of poor treatment may have led border officials to currently report historically low numbers of migrants entering the United States from Mexico outside of official crossings. President Donald Trump's administration is working like no other to track migrants at every step.

The technical possibilities for this are more comprehensive than ever. The new mega-database will be used by the Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), according to US media reports, to facilitate deportations. According to reports, Doge's "Immigration Task Force" is combining biometric data, information from the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Department of Health and Human Services with that from ICE. Data from the Departments of Labor and Housing could also be integrated.

Last month, ICE also commissioned the data company Palantir to develop the necessary software to use the database. It's designed to help track migrant movements in real time, as much as possible. A representative of the American Civil Liberties Union, the largest U.S. civil rights organization, told Wired magazine: "This is a massive dragnet that will have all sorts of consequences not only for undocumented immigrants, but also for U.S. citizens and people who are legally resident here."

Seven million people wanted

Tax data can reveal half a lifetime. Those without a residence permit but still working in the US receive an identification number from the IRS and use it to pay taxes. Until now, the IRS did not share its data with other authorities—this has now changed. The Department of Homeland Security has been granted access, and a court rejected an appeal by NGOs. Several high-ranking IRS employees resigned in protest over the cooperation. The immigration authorities want to use the tax data to track down up to seven million non-US citizens.

Internally, Washington has set a target of at least one million deportations during Trump's first year in office. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is trying to reach this target through another approach: encouraging people to leave on their own, which the government calls "self-deportation." There's an app for this where migrants can indicate that they're leaving the country. The government promises a $1,000 reward plus reimbursement for airfare.

For months, warning video clips have been running online and on television, in which Noem threatens: "We will find you and we will deport you." Noem also flew to El Salvador, where she was filmed wearing a $50,000 gold Rolex in front of shaved-headed prisoners at the CECOT maximum-security prison. According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the detention center is inhumane. "This is one of the consequences if you enter the country illegally," Noem told the camera. "You will be removed and you will be prosecuted."

Software with tracking function

Palantir's new software is intended to help with this process. A finished prototype is scheduled for the end of September under the project name "ImmigrationOS," or "Immigration Operating System." The contract with the Silicon Valley tech company runs for another two years, until 2027. The collaboration is apparently controversial within the company. According to leaked communications to its employees, Palantir justifies its approach by saying that the software enables migrants to be treated "fairly." The Trump administration has so far been sloppy about this. The most well-known example is the hundreds of people who were transported to the prison in El Salvador without a court hearing.

Palantir, co-founded by influential investor Peter Thiel, is to expand the in-house software that ICE is currently using. This, the reasoning goes, will enable Trump's orders to be complied with as quickly as possible to stop the alleged "invasion" of the US by migrants cited therein and "protect the American people," as the tender states. According to ICE, the US president's campaign promise of mass deportations also depends on this supporting software. It is intended to have three main functions:

• Prioritize deportations, focusing on criminal organizations, violent criminals, and foreigners with expired visas
• Tracking the movements of migrants who voluntarily leave the country, so-called self-deportations
• It is intended to bring together all data on non-US citizens in one overview, an "immigration life cycle" that shows the chronological sequence

ICE agents decide for themselves which migrants they arrest and detain in detention centers. A judge currently has the final say on their fate. The US government is currently challenging this procedure. Homeland Security Secretary Noem said she believes habeus corpus, the right to judicial review of an arrest, could be suspended for migrants . Trump's deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner, said the administration is exploring this possibility.

Increased risk of abuse

Until now, data from different agencies was kept separate, even from different units within the Department of Homeland Security. "There's a reason these systems are isolated," Victoria Noble, a legal fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the US magazine "Wired": "When you put all the data in a central repository that anyone in that agency, or even other agencies, can access, it significantly increases the risk that that information will be accessed by people who don't need it and misuse it for improper purposes or repressive goals," she is quoted as saying. Such as targeting people they don't like, dissidents, immigrants, or other groups.

The government currently claims to be using the new software and database to track the lives of migrants. How else could a US government possibly use such a massive database and interfaces to comprehensive government data? This will depend on the intentions of each administration and possibly individual employees. The Trump administration abolished the complaint and ombudsman offices within the Department of Homeland Security, which could prevent data misuse. "They obstructed the enforcement of immigration laws," said department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. "They often acted as internal adversaries."