President Donald Trump has set a goal of deporting one million people a year, and the new system aims to help prioritize who is targeted.
The IRS agrees to share tax information to support Trump’s deportation plan
The IRS shares taxpayer information, including addresses, with Homeland Security, to help search for undocumented immigrants.
Denver – Federal officials are building a vast new database system that they call “immigrants” to track and target millions of people living illegally in the United States
GOP Megadonor Peter Thiel’s $30 million non-bid agreement with Palantir Technologies will help immigration and customs enforcement agents build a sophisticated system for prioritizing people for deportation, including members of the accused and those who have stayed on tourist visas. The contract with the Denver-based company calls for the prototype to be rolled out this fall.
Thiel, founder and chairman of Palantir, has launched PayPal, close to Vice President JD Vance and Doge Head Elon Musk.
As Musk’s agents seek technology-focused solutions to make government more efficient, the immigration project reflects the approach Doge has brought to federal officials under Trump. Palantir already runs an ICE system used for homeland security investigations, with new immigrants consolidating data from multiple databases from government and private sources.
“The continuous violence and fear campaigns of these transnational organizations in the US and internationally are extremely violent and vicious, and equally threatening the American people,” ICE officials said in justifying their non-building agreement with Palantir. “They present an extraordinary and extraordinary threat to US national security, foreign policy and the economy.”
Palantir’s existing contract with ICE already exceeds $88 million, with the new immigration system costing another $30 million, according to details of the agreement reviewed by USA Today. Some of Musk’s Doge lawmakers had previously worked at Palantir, according to posts on LinkedIn and other social media sites.
The system will also help track people who “self-deport” or voluntarily leave the United States, and prioritize ice enforcement against those who remain. Trump wants to deport one million people every year. This is a dramatic increase that requires vast, sophisticated and expensive targeting, detention and removal operations.
You can reuse the system to track Americans
Civil Liberties Groups warn systems that pose great risk to the public as it is unclear how systems are limited to those who live illegally in the United States. They warn that such a system can be easily scaled to target Americans.
Trump has suggested he would like to remove not only immigrants but also U.S. citizens if they are deemed dangerous, and he has ordered Attorney General Pam Bondy to investigate.
Cooper Quintin, Senior Staff Engineer, Electronic Frontier Foundation, The non-profit digital rights group said Palantir’s work has long raised concerns by effectively matching public databases with Facebook tracking and shopper reward cards.
The federal government collects and maintains a huge amount of information about individual Americans, but computer databases are usually kept separate from each other to maintain personal privacy. In April, USA Today reported that the IRS agreed to provide ICE agents with access to taxpayer data, including data about people who filed taxes without a Social Security number.
ICE agents can get a grasp of where your target person lives and works, who are likely to be at home, who they live with, what type of car they drive, and even the frequent restaurants and shops they live and work.
Quintin said a system designed to target people living illegally in the United States can be easily reused to target the president’s political opponents.
“What they’ve built is a really, really capable engine to analyze big data, tie it together and choose a part of it. It gives you the ability to collate this data with someone and go find a reason to prosecute them,” Quintin said. “Even if you think it’s safe for now, it may not be safe for a long time.”
