ICE Will Use AI to Surveil Social Media
64 comments
·October 27, 2025stuckindoors
Nextgrid
Companies that employ undocumented workers at scale have significant political power and deporting them en-masse would shock many industries, so this won’t happen.
The recent ICE shenanigans (which don’t get me wrong - are awful and badly executed) are just performative bullshit to please the voter base. In fact I’d argue they are intentionally executed badly to attract media attention so they can all say they are being tough on immigrants.
blurbleblurble
You're telling yourself what you want to hear. I guarantee you these guys are dead serious, and they've recently gotten a huge flush of cash.
wsatb
Their reasoning for deploying the Texas National Guard to Chicago was because they claim a rebellion has started. They are consistently provoking citizens and lying about it. The courts have dismissed this due to the ridiculousness of it, but they continue to agitate. I don't think it's all for show, they're seeking a violent response so they can deploy the military.
mattmaroon
I think it’s more to scare immigrants with pleasing the base being icing on the cake. Stephen Miller is genuinely anti-immigrant. And anecdotally, it is working. Ask any flight attendant on an international route.
They want people to stop coming here, and the threat of being sent to some torture camp in the third world won’t deter a Haitian (whose daily life already meets that description) but it will deter people from less atrocious locations.
jonway
normalize adversarial face paint, make up, and apparel.
Silver linings…
aprilthird2021
It's also an enormous waste of money, which this admin loves to do. Billions to Israel, $40B to Argentina, $1T+ to bomb boats in the Gulf of Mexico, waste waste waste everywhere and send the bill to the average American, whose economic prospects haven't improved
siliconc0w
Really impressive how quickly Republicans have co-signed the vaporization of civil and state rights that were once a tenant of their party's identity.
hereme888
Try to actually listen to what Republicans are saying, and it won't be surprising anymore.
kayodelycaon
It was never about state rights. It’s always been about power and control. Trump is the true face of the Republican party that’s finally come out. He’s not implementing the policies they want, but they wanted someone like him.
The ultimate goal of Christian nationalists (a large part of the Republican Party) is to turn the United States into a single-party theocracy and implement their version of Sharira law. They probably don’t fully realize this is what they’re doing.
hereme888
Power and control over our own Country. No more wives and daughters raped and murdered by illegal aliens. No more flushing foreigners with our own money, when our own families need it.
Let other countries take care of their own, until the US can safeguard its own.
cbdevidal
Both parties are globalist TBH. I used to vote Repub but got out 15 years ago, disillusioned by the hypocrisy. Would love to see a minarchist or libertarian succeed but I know that’s not realistic.
abuani
There will be a court case where some bit of evidence is going to be similar to:
Ice Agents: "Is <name> here illegally?" AI prompt: "you're absolutely right!"
viraptor
Not sure why they'd bother, since we're in the "random kidnappings are the MO" territory already, regardless of the citizenship status.
reactordev
This. It’s more about using AI to do facial recognition or similar things to detect individuals en masse and flag them for the gulag.
jpk
If only. If ICE arrests and deports someone without due process, there is no court case.
anigbrowl
Somewhat relevant: ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/26/ice-detains-...
hereme888
Don't all agencies pretty much do social media surveillance in some way?
Why is it surprising if another law enforcement agency like ICE uses it?
Sanctuary8542
Shhhhh...they're listening
cyberax
> $5.7 million contract for AI-driven social media surveillance
Yeah, that would just about cover the cost of a pizza party in the AI world. You also can look at "Zignal Labs". The website looks like 100% snakeoil.
I have no doubt that ICE would love to have some AI-based software to detect illegal immigrants, but I doubt it's more effective than just regular datamining.
jdiff
It doesn't need to be effective, it needs to be a computerized excuse to go after more people. Whenever computers are used to target people, the output is always given far too much weight. Recently we had guns drawn on a child because a computer vision algorithm classified his doritos as a gun with a low confidence score, with explicit advice to only investigate further and not assume correctness. But that child still had multiple guns trained on them.
Take that, apply it to here, and it's clear that effectiveness would actually be counterproductive.
Mistletoe
Now we begin to see the true reason for all the AI push.
>You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.
– George Orwell, 1984
codedokode
Let me play a devil's advocate. Are you (and Orwell) unhappy that people breaking the law get punished? Even if you merely cross the road in the wrong place, you deserve a punishment to the maximum extent specified by the law, don't you? It doesn't matter if you break the law in the darkness or not.
50208
Lord no.
mouse_
they can see with our wifi now so that darkness part is accounted for
:(
protocolture
ahah, see, my bias is confirmed.
FridayoLeary
So far 2 million illegal immigrants have left the US. Mass surveillance and enforcement technology is dismal to think about, though NSA and google have been doing it for years. I'm watching from my perspective in the UK where there is growing fury over the gross incompetence, negligence and mishandling of a mass immigration crisis which is so stupid it beggars belief. The various law enforcement agencies in the us don't cooperate that closely, so there's less scope for this to be abused against american citizens unlike in the UK.
danparsonson
A perceived mass immigration crisis, which has little to do with reality and much more to do with gas bags stoking fear and spreading nonsense.
Here's reality: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-...
FridayoLeary
Thanks for that. Here's a more up to date link https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-....
I reject that. There is a steadily worsening crisis, even the current labour government have acknowledged that pledging to take lots of action against it, both now and during the election campaign. Specifically small boat crossings, of which more then 43,000 have already arrived this year. There is not a single politician in this country who doesn't admit that there is a serious problem.
jonway
Don’t you have a coast guard?
This is a skill issue.
fart-fart-FART
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Ethnic_d...
this_is_fine.jpg
shpxbssanmvfphz
Yes, it is fine. And even if you think otherwise, there's nothing you can do about it. So fuck off.
shadowgovt
Yes, it is.
Anyone concerned about that outcome probably shouldn't have allowed their ruler to declare herself Empress of India, creating a nation with a 10-to-1 ratio of "people living on a subcontinent" vs. "people living on an island." Along with many, many other decisions made by the UK in the past 400-odd-years.
Point is, it's a bit late to complain about the "average Brit" not looking like a Viking took a Celtic bride anymore, yeah? Not after putting so much effort into being an empire that spot-welded as many different people under its flag as it possibly could for awhile?
bakies
Is mass immigration really a crisis? Like people are upset here in the US too but I don't even know why. There's a lot of immigrants in my state but they're not upsetting me.
kelnos
> Is mass immigration really a crisis?
Not even a little bit. No one is taking jobs away from citizens or legal immigrants (locals don't want those jobs, either at all, or at the wages offered), rampant "migrant crime" is a myth created and perpetuated by the right (immigrants commit crime at lower rates than citizens), and to top it off, the American economy depends on many of these migrant workers in order to function (often in exploitative ways; explicitly allowing and supporting this type of migration would make things safer for everyone).
It's othering and racism, plain and simple.
I'm not saying we should just open the floodgates and let anyone and everyone in, and I'm not saying we shouldn't deport non-citizens who commit violent crime, but the "crisis" is entirely manufactured.
Refreeze5224
Absolutely not. They are an essential part of modern American life, and anyone against it either doesn't understand that, or does it for racist reasons.
travisgriggs
I observe the following. ICE has not caused a huge step change in people leaving the country. If you look at the stats since Reagan (https://infographicsite.com/infographic/deportations-under-u...), it wanders up and down and is (imo) complicated.
What has changed is the “messaging” around the topic. This is very common with the Trump administration. When all is said and done, when exceptions are made/bought, and the courts and others get involved, it ends up not being much of a needle move. BUT, what is different every time is the messaging. And I have come to believe, that is what the actual goal is to some degree. The real goal is to send a message to people who are immigrants OR (and this is important) look like immigrants. It’s a message of “remember your place” and “be grateful you get to be here”. It’s the same type of tactics that gets sent to Asian communities, black communities, women, etc.
I am white. I am a male. I am 55. I oscillate between despondently sad and disgusted.
throwawa14223
I'm an extreme isolationist but I see it as an extreme crisis that we have a large number of people with first generation ties to other countries.
reactordev
The older you are, the more likely you’ll see more people and say “get off my lawn” when really, you were busy hanging plates when the rest of the world was having babies…
That’s really what happened. The population doubled in 15 years and people moved (people always move). It’s just more people now. So naturally you’ll see more immigrants.
add-sub-mul-div
Roughly half the population responds to unfamiliar people and ideas with curiosity, and the other half with fear. The latter half are easily manipulated into nurturing the fear. Everything rolls up to this.
outside1234
Not only is it not a crisis but many nations NEED immigration because their natality rates are so low. Including the UK.
nine_zeros
The answer is painfully obvious - rascism - the closeted Nazis are out in the open.
Although one must remember, they want to express their white supremacy but simultaneously not be called Nazis.
null
kgasser88
[flagged]
neither_color
Different populists have different ideal numbers for how many people they want to purge. Some want 10 million, some want 20-50 million going decades back and reversing whatever laws allowed the "wrong kind" of even legal immigrants to come here in the first place.
I think more governments around the world are catching on to the idea that your majority population can excuse a large amount of economic mismanagement and bad geopolitical strategy if you blame foreigners who arrived after your decline started.
If a satisfactory amount of foreigners are removed, the technology will still be there and the defense contractors will still need contracts. If there are no viable foreign adversaries at that point, then another domestic target will be needed.
epistasis
> So far 2 million illegal immigrants have left the US.
Why would anyone believe this? It's such a strange thing to say, and one would have to be an absolute fool to believe it.
jdiff
The people I work with believe the government, the current administration is funding immigrants. Providing them with handlers who are paid to assist them, open up credit cards in their own names on behalf of non-citizens who otherwise couldn't.
Multiple of them believe this. One mentioned it, after she left I turned to my other coworker to say "that was some crazy stuff she was saying" only to be met with, "Hey, it's happening. A lot of federal money goes missing and this is exactly where it's going."
It's a complete disconnect from reality that's malleable to any form desired.
mjbale116
> have left the US
They did not "leave" the US, they were deported without due process.
> though NSA and google have been doing it for years
That does not make it less dismal
> less scope for this to be abused against american citizens unlike in the UK
There are agencies in the US that do as they please without needing to cooperate with anyone. Not sure how you arrived in that conclusion.
dyauspitr
Hell would be a USA without immigrants. I wouldn’t want to live in a country full of salt of the earth Tennessee farmers.
dhdhdhsb
I've got bad news for you, but Californians are almost universally reviled in all other parts of the United States.
jdiff
Only among consumers of conservative media, and they're not a majority of the US population.
throwawa14223
TBH that sounds amazing.
50208
The United States is a nation of immigrants ... hopefully someday soon we'll remember that it is acutally our biggest strength, not a weakness.
wsatb
> So far 2 million illegal immigrants have left the US.
The Trump administration loves gaudy numbers like this. Common sense tells you that's a lot of movement in too short of time. Until they release evidence of these numbers, please do not spread this misinformation.
epistasis
Indeed, it's a complete lie and fabrication, and those who repeat it are bearing false witness. Take the report it came from, click on any "supporting" link, such as:
> A recent study from the United Nations reported that President Trump’s immigration policies led to a 97% reduction in illegal aliens heading northbound to the U.S. from Central America.
And you find that the document they link does not support their assertion, and in face the "97%" refers to:
> The migrants who returned during the period were primarily Venezuelan nationals, accounting for 97% of the documented southward flow, with most heading to neighboring Colombia.
It's comically bad deception, only people who continuously traffic in lies all day long would even publish something like this.
Enforcement on businesses hiring non legal workers - gets the root cause. Without fixing that we are just playing wack a mole - people will still venture to the US since jobs exist and ICE is better than what ever crap they are coming from. Sure you may dissuade a few on the margins.
We are not fixing the root cause here even if you believe that immigration is bad for the country. It’s just a farce.