(C) Common Dreams
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How AI is aiding Trump's immigration crackdown [1]
['William Antonelli']
Date: 2025-05
More law enforcement has access to personal data
Cases of immigration arrests have been based on inaccurate information
Local law enforcement deputized to act as federal immigration officers
NEW YORK - The United States under President Donald Trump is ramping up use of surveillance systems and artificial intelligence (AI) to track and arrest immigrants, raising fears that risks to accuracy and privacy could put almost anyone in danger of getting caught up in the crackdown.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other immigration control agencies are using a suite of AI tools — such as facial recognition scanners in public areas and robotic dogs patrolling the southern border for human movement — as part of the crackdown on alleged illegal immigration.
Many of the AI tools that immigration agents are using have been in place for years and are a legacy of previous administrations, according to Saira Hussain, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group.
But now these tools have "a ramped-up scope in terms of who (they are) targeting," and a wider range of people will have access to the data these tools collect, Hussain said.
The pumped-up surveillance dragnet also includes services run by private contractors like Babel Street, which trawl immigrants' social media accounts to collect personal information.
Once that information is collected, agencies like DHS and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) use it to track locations of immigrants, map out their family trees and justify arrest warrants and deportation decisions.
An example of the widening scope is the government’s new “Catch and Revoke” program, launched under Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March.
It uses AI to monitor the public speech of foreign nationals, particularly student visa holders, to locate those “who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups,” the Axios news website reported.
Anyone caught by the programme is at immediate risk of losing their visa, and more than 300 foreign nationals, including those with student and visitor visas, have had their visas revoked under the initiative, according to Rubio.
"If they're taking activities that are counter to our ... national interest, to our foreign policy, we'll revoke the visa," Rubio told a news conference on March 28.
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[1] Url:
https://www.context.news/ai/how-ai-is-aiding-trumps-immigration-crackdown
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