SmartLINK, a tracking app used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), had been praised as a humane alternative to detention; however, it has recently raised concerns about the privacy and civil rights of immigrants.
The organizations Just Futures Law, Mijente Support Committee and Community Justice Exchange filed a lawsuit last week against ICE to obtain information about the data that the agency collects on migrants monitored through the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program. But before going to court, advocacy groups first requested the information from the federal agency nearly eight months ago.
In their September 2021 Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request, the groups that filed the lawsuit this week sought information about the types of data BI collects through its app, including “location data, sequences of video, voice recording, biometric data, information about the mobile network and/or any other data about the mobile device or its uses”, as well as the time this information is stored.
Although federal agencies must respond to Foia requests within 20 days of receipt, the groups say they have yet to receive any acknowledgment of the request.
Immigration surveillance for ICE is handled by BI Inc, a subsidiary of Geo Group, the nation’s largest prison corporation. The company helps monitor more than 200,000 migrants through electronic ankle shackles, voice recognition and a facial recognition app called SmartLINK.
Because BI is a private company, advocates say, little information exists about how the biometric and location data it collects through its Smartlink app is managed. The company’s privacy policy also provides little additional information. BI encourages the sharing of information among its various law enforcement clients and allows its employees to access any historical migrant registration information.
TRUMP IMPLEMENTED IT IN 2018, BIDEN PROMOTED ITS USE
ICE began using the SmartLINK app in 2018, during the Donald Trump administration, but data recently released by ICE shows that the number of asylum seekers monitored by the app has nearly tripled since President Joe Biden took office.
HERE YOU CAN SEE THE ICE STATISTICS PUBLISHED LAST APRIL 9.
According to ICE’s April 9 report, the average length of time for migrants placed in the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program is now 439 days. ICE requires released individuals to call a phone number to report to an agent or use the SmartLINK app for their mobile phones. In some cases, they will need to wear a global positioning system (GPS) tracking device, report to an ICE office or undergo a home visit, according to the agency’s website.
The Biden administration has significantly increased usage of the app, according to a data analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a Syracuse University research organization. Here you can see the report.
“At the start of the Biden administration in January 2021, ICE had increased the use of SmartLINK so that each technology made up about a third of the total number of cases. However, between January 2021 and February 2022, phone and GPS reports remained virtually stagnant, while SmartLINK technology more than quadrupled, from approximately 27,000 to more than 118,000,” the TRAC report says.
The privacy concerns stem from an alleged lack of transparency in how BI Inc., the private company awarded $2.2 billion to run ATD, stores immigrant data.
Since the start of the Biden administration, the number of immigrants in ICE detention centers has ranged from a high of 27,217 to a low of 13,258. It is currently above 18,000.
UNEVEN GROWTH AMONG ICE REGIONS
Although ATD’s total enrollment has more than doubled during the Biden administration, some of ICE’s areas of responsibility or AORs (i.e., enforcement regions) have seen greater growth than others. San Diego, New York and Denver, for example, have experienced growth consistent with the national trend; each of those AORs has more than doubled its ATD enrollment between the start of the Biden administration and the present, the report indicates.
Boston and San Antonio have seen growth much higher than average. Boston’s ATD enrollment nearly quintupled in the past 13 months, from 1,503 in January 2021 to 7,118 in February 2022. El Paso saw even greater growth; the ATD population in ICE’s El Paso region increased eightfold. And Phoenix saw by far the most growth, with ATD numbers rising from just 1,101 in January 2021 to 14,306 today.
ATD’s enrollment growth at the San Antonio AOR would have been the highest in the country, but its area of responsibility, which covered both Central and South Texas at the start of the Biden administration, was split in two at in FY 2022. ATD cases that were in South Texas, which was previously attributed to San Antonio, were tabulated under the new Harlingen AOR beginning in FY 2022. This left San Antonio covering only the center of Texas. The Harlingen AOR first appeared on ICE ATD reports in November 2021 and today numbers 16,070, the most people on ATD for any AOR in the country, TRAC notes.
HOW DOES IT WORK
The program requires immigrants to install the SmartLINK app on their smartphone or other device. SmartLINK uses facial recognition to confirm identity and schedule check-ins with border patrol agents. To communicate with agents, the app user can set up calendar events, reminders, and even contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directly. Agents can also use the app to monitor people without having to physically observe them at all times, and the GPS in the app monitors the locations of migrants to verify that they are in the destination cities where they told border agents they would be.
Immigrants who are detained or in the ATD program are awaiting civil proceedings.
“[ATD] it is not a substitute for detention, but it allows ICE to exercise greater oversight over a portion of those not in detention,” according to the ICE website.
The federal agency claims that SmartLINK can also connect immigrants with community services like food banks, according to ICE.
But what the defenders point out is the lack of transparency regarding the information of the monitored immigrants.
Advocacy groups say asylum seekers being tracked through SmartLINK are being asked to always keep their phones on, even when deportation agents aren’t conducting searches, raising questions about possible over-surveillance and outside the legal limits.
DHS claims it conducted and approved a privacy threshold analysis on Oct. 27, 2021, ICE noted. But a recent investigation by The Guardian revealed that ICE and BI have issued conflicting information about how often the app tracks the location of people it monitors, that BI’s app collected a large amount of information about its users, and that BI encouraged its government clients to share crime data with each other.
Those findings prompted Democratic lawmakers to write a letter on February 25 to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding urgent changes to the Intensive Appearance Monitoring Program (ISAP), as well as pointing out their concerns about SmartLINK.
“This technology has the ability to surveil not only the subject but also bystanders, including US citizens and those with legal status, raising further civil rights concerns and creating a potential for unwarranted surveillance of residents of the U.S. without just cause, your knowledge, or your consent,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter dated Feb. 23.
As the number of immigrants monitored by ATD increased, the number in ICE detention centers decreased. But it’s not a direct one-to-one correlation, according to TRAC. The number of immigrants in ATD has expanded, while the number of people in immigration detention centers has fluctuated. ATD is more of a mechanism for ICE to expand its ability to monitor immigrants who are in the country, so it’s not necessarily that detention numbers will go down just because alternatives to detention are increasing. Since the start of the Biden Administration, the number of immigrants in ICE detention centers has ranged from a high of 27,217 to a low of 13,258. It is currently above 18,000, the report says.
–
