Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a \u201cconfidence score\u201d on the person\u2019s current address, 404 Media has learned. ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.\u00a0The findings, based on internal ICE material obtained by 404 Media, public procurement records, and recent sworn testimony from an ICE official, show the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency\u2019s activities on the ground. The tool receives peoples\u2019 addresses from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) among a range of other sources, according to the material.The news comes after Department of Homeland Security (DHS) head Kristi Noem said the agency is sending hundreds more federal agents to Minneapolis amid widespread protests against the agency. Last week ICE officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37 year old U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good. During Operation Metro Surge, which DHS calls the \u201clargest immigration operation ever,\u201d immigration agents have surrounded rideshare drivers and used pepper spray on high school students.\u201cEnhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) is a targeting tool designed to improve capabilities for identifying and prioritizing high-value targets through advanced analytics,\u201d a user guide for ELITE obtained by 404 Media says. The tool aims to be nearly all encompassing when it comes to finding ICE targets, from identifying subjects in the first place, to building a list of people, to supervisors approving selections for officers to ultimately go into the field and apprehend.\ud83d\udca1Do you know anything else about this tool? Do you work at ICE, CBP, or Palantir? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.One feature of ELITE is the \u201cGeospatial Lead Sourcing Tab,\u201d according to the user guide. This lets ICE see people it may potentially want to detain on a map interface, based on various criteria such as \u201cBios & IDs,\u201d \u201cLocation,\u201d \u201cOperations,\u201d and \u201cCriminality.\u201d An ICE officer can then select people one by one, or draw a shape on the map to see people in that selected area.ELITE has already been used by ICE to target specific areas, according to sworn testimony from an ICE official in Oregon. In October, immigration officers waited in three unmarked SUVs outside an apartment complex in Woodburn. They went on to bust a driver\u2019s window and pull a 45-year-old woman from a van, used ICE\u2019s facial recognition app Mobile Fortify on her, and agents had the goal of making eight arrests per team per day, Oregon Live reported. Lawyers representing the woman say authorities arrested her and more than 30 other people in a \u201cdragnet.\u201d\u00a0\u201cOne of our apps, it\u2019s called ELITE. And so it tells you how many people are living in this area and what\u2019s the likelihood of them actually being there,\u201d a deportation officer with ICE\u2019s Fugitive Operations Unit, identified in court records as JB, testified about the raid in early December. 404 Media purchased a transcript of JB\u2019s testimony from the court. \u201cIt\u2019s basically a map of the United States. It\u2019s kind of like Google Maps.\u201d\u201cIt pulls from all kinds of sources,\u201d JB continued. \u201cIt\u2019s a newer app that was actually given to us in ICE.\u201d JB said ELITE is what ICE sometimes uses to track the apparent density of people at a particular location to target. \u201cYou\u2019re going to go to a more dense population rather than […] like, if there\u2019s one pin at a house and the likelihood of them actually living there is like 10 percent […] you\u2019re not going to go there.\u201d For that raid in Woodburn, JB suggested the immigration officers used ELITE to generate leads. Additionally, in a text thread of immigration officers, someone described the area as \u201ctarget rich,\u201d which JB explained meant the officials had run multiple license plates in that area and found vehicles registered to people \u201cwho had either a criminal or immigration nexus.\u201dScreenshots of the ICE official’s testimony. Image: 404 Media.JB and other officials were testifying in the case of MJMA, the woman pulled from the van during the Woodburn raid. She is being represented by attorneys from Innovation Law Lab.Once a person is selected on the map interface, ELITE then shows a dossier on that particular person, according to the user guide. That includes their name, a photo, their Alien Number (the unique code given by the U.S. government to each immigrant), their date of birth, and their full address. ELITE notes the source of the address (such as the government agency that supplied it), and gives an \u201caddress confidence score.\u201d One address confidence score example in the guide is 98.95 out of 100; another is 77.25 out of 100. This score is based on both the source of the address and how recent the data is, the user guide says. (ICE is paying skip tracers, private investigators, and bounty hunters to help verify peoples\u2019 addresses.)Those sources can include HHS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and \u201cCLEAR.\u201d The guide does not provide any more specifics on what CLEAR might be, but ICE has repeatedly contracted with Thomson Reuters which sells a data product called CLEAR. Thomson Reuters did not respond to a request for comment. HHS did not respond to a request for comment.The documents don\u2019t say if those are the only entities providing data for ELITE. The user guide says ELITE is \u201cintegrating new data sources\u201d to reduce officer workload.ICE can also use ELITE to look up people based on an unique identifier, such as their Alien Number, name, or date of birth. ELITE also lets ICE do this in bulk, selecting up to 50 people at once, according to the guide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ICE can filter the map by what the guide calls Special Operations. These are \u201cgroups of pre-defined aliens specifically targeted by Leadership for action.\u201d ICE officers are told to consult ICE leadership or \u201cbroadcasts\u201d on when to use these operation filters. DHS\u2019s surge in Minneapolis is focused at least in part on the city\u2019s Somali community after renewed focus on a COVID-19 fraud case. The overwhelming majority of Somalis who live in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area are U.S. citizens, PBS reported.\u201cThese records give us behind-the-scenes insight into the kind of mass surveillance machine ICE is building with help from powerful tech companies like Palantir,\u201d Laura Rivera, senior staff attorney at Just Futures Law, told 404 Media. \u201cWhen combined with what we know from ICE testimony and other public information, it gives us a blueprint into how ICE is going into communities and identifying people for arrest in real-time.\u201dSenator Ron Wyden, who represents Oregon where ELITE was discussed, told 404 Media in a statement, \u201cThe fact ICE is using this app proves the completely indiscriminate nature of the agency’s aggressive and violent incursions into our communities. This app allows ICE to find the closest person to arrest and disappear, using government and commercial data, with the help of Palantir and Trump’s Big Brother databases. It makes a mockery of the idea that ICE is trying to make our country safer. Rather, agents are reportedly picking people to deport from our country the same way you’d choose a nearby coffee shop.\u201dScreenshot of the Palantir contract, via highergov.com.The ELITE user guide does not say who developed the system. But the tool\u2019s distinctive title\u2014Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement\u2014exactly matches one included in an addendum to a Palantir contract from last year. It says Palantir should \u201ccontinue configuration and engineering services\u201d for ELITE and some other ICE tools. That supplemental agreement for $29.9 million started in September and is planned to go on for at least a year.Palantir has worked with ICE for years and was focused on criminal investigations, supporting Homeland Security Investigations\u2019 (HSI) Investigative Case Management (ICM) system. That changed in the second Trump administration, with Palantir now working on ICE\u2019s deportation efforts.\u00a0After participating in a three-week coding sprint, ICE updated an ongoing Palantir contract related to \u201cEnforcement Prioritization and Targeting,\u201d to \u201csupport the development of an accurate picture of actionable leads based on existing law enforcement datasets to allow law enforcement to prioritize enforcement actions,\u201d according to an internal Palantir wiki previously obtained by 404 Media. The goal was to find the physical location of people marked for deportation, and Palantir said it believes its work with ICE is \u201cintended to promote government efficiency, transparency, and accountability.\u201dThe leaked material described Palantir\u2019s deportation-focused work as \u201cconcentrated on delivering prototype capabilities\u201d and lasting around six months. It left open the room for more work with ICE, and said \u201cPalantir has developed into a more mature partner for ICE.\u201d Documents ICE published described Palantir\u2019s work as building a tool called ImmigrationOS.More than eight months have passed since Palantir discussed the issue internally. Neither Palantir nor DHS responded to multiple requests for comment.In their testimony, JB said, \u201cit\u2019s a tool that we use that gives you a probability. But there\u2019s never […] there\u2019s no such thing as 100 percent.\u201d The user guide adds, \u201cAs always, make sure you do your due diligence on each target to confirm removability prior to action.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"