Expanding Surveillance of Immigrants – at what cost? – In partnership with American Community Media – National Briefing Series

By Christopher Young,
Contributing Writer,

For the past several weeks, The Mississippi Link has partnered with American Community Media to develop a series of stories in the wake of dramatic DOGE and anti-DEI cuts in federal spending.
This week we explore the conversation on immigrant data surveillance and sharing.
The Issue: The U.S. government has steadily expanded its use of surveillance tools, often under the banner of fighting fraud, stopping crime, or detecting undocumented immigrants. But those same tools, from DMV database access and facial recognition to cellphone tracking and data broker contracts, are now building a vast infrastructure that reaches far beyond immigration enforcement. This digital dragnet has the potential to place every American under unprecedented scrutiny. By compiling and cross-linking personal information, the state increases the risk of political targeting, identity theft, and massive data breaches. What starts as surveillance of immigrants can quickly become surveillance of all, eroding the privacy rights of every resident.

Nicole Alvarez, Senior Policy Analyst for Technology Policy at Center for American Progress, was the first panelist and recently published a report, “the Trump administration is using American sensitive data to build a digital watchtower.” Alvarez defined the digital watchtower as “a rapidly expanding system of surveillance that threatens not only the immigrant communities currently being targeted by this administration, but the privacy rights of all Americans.” When citizens interact with the government, whether applying for benefits, filing taxes, etc., they share information – social security numbers, birthdates, medical information, income and tax information, etc. Her report focused on two major developments: 1) secondary data abuse, and 2) centralization of federal data systems.

She highlighted the Privacy Act of 1974 as the main law that governs how federal agencies handle our personal data and that it should only be used for the intended purpose – known as purpose limitation, yet the law was written prior to the internet and the mass storage of data, which translates to less accountability in today’s world. She indicated that “with agencies sharing information, personal data is now able to be used for other than its intended purpose and without your knowledge or consent.”
She spoke about the very “little public transparency and oversight around how this is happening in practice and how the IRS commissioner, who was appointed by President Trump earlier in 2025 ended up resigning in protest over privacy concerns.” She indicated that “Medicaid enrollment records have been reportedly used to identify immigrants for deportation. “Again, the individuals involved were engaging with these systems in good faith – turning healthcare safety nets into a surveillance pipeline, a sharp break from purpose limitation in public data use – undermining public trust,” she said.
In the second area, centralization of data, she indicated that “personal information was kept in silos to aid in maintaining privacy, but these silos are now being broken down by the government. The Department of Government Efficiency, which is driving this initiative, is
copying or transferring the raw data into one centralized repository, which creates a single point of access where Doge staff and potentially other agencies can query across all records at once. You can think of this as merging separate filing cabinets into one giant filing cabinet – fundamentally changing the rules of the game.”
The next panelist, Emerald Tse, an Associate at the Center for Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law School – a research and advocacy organization that focuses on privacy law and policy and the impact of digital-era surveillance on individuals and communities. The Center has produced two reports, American Dragnet, Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century and Rating the genome, how the United States government is abusing its immigration powers to amass DNA for future policing. The reports can be accessed at https://www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-technology-center/publications.
She shared that the Department of Homeland Security has extensive digital surveillance powers.
In the American Dragnet report mentioned above, “we revealed that ICE uses digital surveillance to monitor the lives of a majority of people in the United States…so when people signed up for water or electricity, the information that they gave to utility companies ended up
in the hands of ICE. And similarly, when people applied for driver’s licenses, the information that they gave to the DMV also got to ICE.” The same is true for collection of DNA, which then can be used by other agencies…DHS Secretary Noem is pushing for more government contracts with private companies to develop surveillance technologies.”
The final panelist, Sophia Cope, Senior Staff Attorney on Electronic Frontier Foundation’s civil liberties team focused on social media surveillance, especially of immigrants. “The first Trump administration State Department succeeded in adding a question to visa applications to obtain social media handles used in the last five years. When consular officials reviewed social media histories it could be used as a determining factor in approving or disapproving the application – a direct affront to the First Amendment. “It started out with non-citizens seeking student Visas, but now we see lawful permanent residents and those with other statuses being looked at…perhaps swept into surveillance and having their data collected and stored.”
She also mentioned that “CBP Customs and Border Protection has the ability to search the cell phones, laptops, or other devices of travelers crossing, legally at ports of entry.” In our sharply divided society, some may view these surveillance activities as necessary, while others will view them as governmental intrusion of privacy rights. The entire briefing can be viewed at https://americancommunitymedia.org/media-briefings/expanding-surveillance-of-immigrants-at-what-cost.