Save StorySave this storySave StorySave this story<\/p>\n
As the federal immigration crackdown has expanded across the United States, the government\u2019s activities have relied on infrastructure from several key tech companies.<\/p>\n
The defense tech and IT infrastructure giant Palantir has received particular attention for its work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. However, when it comes to selling tech to federal immigration authorities, Palantir is far from alone: ICE and Customs and Border Protection are paying hundreds of millions of dollars for products and services from companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.<\/p>\n
WIRED examined data and records dated from January 1, 2023, to the present that were posted in the two federal contracting databases\u2014the System for Award Management (SAM) and the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS)\u2014focusing on contracts with the companies or contract descriptions that explicitly name the companies or use relevant shorthand. WIRED also reviewed public documents from ICE and the Department of Homeland Security pertaining to the technology at ICE and CBP\u2019s disposal. Collectively, they reveal that the agencies are willing to spend significant sums of money to ensure that the companies continue to power their operations.<\/p>\n
In total, Palantir has earned about $121.9 million in payments and obligations from ICE since 2023. In that same time frame, ICE has paid for products worth at least $94 million from Microsoft, at least $51 million from Amazon, and at least $921,000 from Google. CBP, meanwhile, has paid for products worth at least $81 million from Microsoft, at least $158 million from Amazon, and at least $7 million from Google. These are minimum estimates that exclude payments that do not directly mention these companies or their core offerings in publicly available documents.<\/p>\n
Many of the payments are for cloud storage powering operations across the agencies. Some payment descriptions mention particular offices\u2014like ICE\u2019s Enforcement and Removal Operations, which carries out arrests and deportations\u2014or highly specific databases that store information about everything from students to ongoing criminal cases. Usually, ICE and CBP purchase offerings from these companies through third-parties\u2014in Microsoft\u2019s case, it\u2019s typically Dell Federal Systems, while for Amazon and Google, it tends to be more obscure companies like Four Points Technology or Westwind Computer Products.<\/p>\n
When a third party is involved, it\u2019s not clear whether a tech giant knows that their products are being sold to ICE or CBP. It is clear, however, that without their products, the computing infrastructure of America's immigration machine would bear little resemblance to its current form.<\/p>\n
Some of the most powerful tools at ICE and CBP\u2019s disposal\u2014data analysis tools that bring together information typically stored across many different federal databases\u2014can often be traced back to Palantir.<\/p>\n
Palantir has developed a variety of data management and analytics software platforms for ICE, federal records reviewed by WIRED show. While Palantir does not appear to have done any work for CBP since 2013, ICE has relied on the company\u2019s products since 2011.<\/p>\n
In 2014, Palantir created ICE\u2019s Investigative Case Management (ICM) system, a version of the company\u2019s off-the-shelf product Gotham. In a 2016 DHS privacy impact assessment, the agency says that Palantir\u2019s ICM\u2014which the assessment describes as ICE\u2019s \u201ccore law enforcement case management tool\u201d\u2014stores "criminal and civil investigative case files," helps facilitate information-sharing with CBP, and performs "investigative research" on systems "both internal and external to ICE and DHS."<\/p>\n
The assessment adds that the ICM is primarily used by agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), ICE\u2019s criminal investigative arm. According to a slide presentation uploaded to SAM in July 2023, the ICM was used by about 10,000 people globally.<\/p>\n
The total extent of what the ICM can do is unclear, but known use cases for Gotham may provide clues. Police departments have used Gotham to centralize evidence, search for suspects using physical traits like tattoos or scars, and hypothesize about individuals\u2019 relationships and possible gang membership. Military customers, meanwhile, use it to plan troop movements, monitor their surveillance tools, and identify targets on the \u201ckill chain.\u201d<\/p>\n
As WIRED reported last April, ICE paid Palantir $30 million to build another tool, the Immigration Lifecycle Operating System, or ImmigrationOS, to help the agency choose who to deport and keep track of people who were removed from the US or chose to leave voluntarily.<\/p>\n
A Palantir spokesperson tells WIRED that ImmigrationOS has \u201cthe same core infrastructure\u201d as \u201cEnhanced Lead Identification and Targeting Enforcement\u201d (ELITE), a new app developed by the company. According to documentation DHS published in January, ELITE has been in use since June. 404 Media reported that the app can create on-the-spot dossiers about possible deportation targets, including a \u201cconfidence score\u201d of whether a person may reside at a particular address. The DHS documentation says that ELITE uses AI to more easily access \u201cunstructured, hard\u2011to\u2011read address information in records like rap sheets and warrants,\u201d and claims that officers \u201creview and validate the AI-driven outputs\u201d before acting on them.<\/p>\n
ICE has also been using a new Palantir-developed tool designed to \u201creview and categorize incoming tips\u201d submitted to the agency, as reported by WIRED. The tool, which has been in use since June 2025, is also designed to produce brief summaries of these tips, and translate those that are not in English.<\/p>\n
Palantir also developed the tool that preceded it, the FALCON Tipline, which existed under a larger \u201cIT environment\u201d the agency referred to as \u201cFALCON.\u201d (ICE has never revealed whether FALCON was an acronym.) While active, FALCON also included at least two other tools built by Palantir: one that stored and analyzed trade data, and one that ingested data from various internal databases and made it searchable.<\/p>\n
ICE announced in 2022 that it would be replacing FALCON, which a 2023 DHS report clarified would be a tool built internally. A Palantir spokesperson confirms with WIRED that the FALCON environment had been \u201cretired.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, tells WIRED that while Palantir isn\u2019t the company harvesting people\u2019s data, it enables ICE to analyze data it obtains from other sources. In doing so, it enables the agency\u2019s larger surveillance apparatus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overriding theme that we've seen for a long time, and especially over the last year, is this \u2018collect it all\u2019 mentality. \u2018Let's grab as much as we can, we will find ways to use it,\u2019\u201d Laperruque says. \u201cAnd if we have it all, we'll be able to define what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n
| Got a Tip?<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n |
|---|
| Are you a current or former government employee who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at carolinehaskins.61.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n With the exception of ImmigrationOS and ELITE, all of these tools predate the second Trump administration. However, the extent of the data ICE has access to, and these tools could potentially work with, has expanded over the past year. \u201cThis administration is trying to aggregate those different data sources for the purpose of immigration enforcement, despite the fact that that information was not collected for the purpose of immigration enforcement,\u201d says Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Surveillance Oversight Program. \u201cDoing that undermines the trust in government.\u201d<\/p>\n In the weeks since federal immigration enforcement agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, some Palantir employees have asked questions about the ethics and business logic of selling to ICE, and requested more information about the company\u2019s relationship with the agency. In early February, WIRED reported, CEO Alex Karp recorded a video for Palantir employees about the company's work for ICE that shared very little information. Employees were told that if they were interested in learning more, they could sign an NDA.<\/p>\n DHS, ICE, and CBP did not respond to WIRED's requests for comment.<\/p>\n Microsoft<\/h2>\nICE and CBP use both Microsoft\u2019s Azure cloud storage and Microsoft 365. Broadly speaking, there appears to be more public-facing information about how ICE uses Microsoft\u2019s products and services compared to CBP.<\/p>\n Some payment descriptions on FPDS reveal that ICE uses Azure to help run the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), which is in charge of IT systems throughout ICE, and the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, where ICE lawyers litigate "all removal cases including those against criminal aliens, terrorists, and human rights abusers.\u201d<\/p>\n Azure also powers \u201cdaily operations\u201d for ICE\u2019s Homeland Security Investigations Technical Operations team, according to FPDS records. ICE\u2019s website says that technical enforcement officers use "electronic surveillance devices like telephone, video, audio, tracking, radio frequency technologies and associated surveillance systems" during "high-risk" criminal investigations.<\/p>\n FPDS and SAM documents rarely provide much insight into how exactly ICE is using particular Microsoft 365 products. However, there are some hints about how ICE uses Dynamics 365, a suite of AI-powered tools that Microsoft claims can help companies manage supply chains and other operations.<\/p>\n On FPDS, ICE claimed it purchased Dynamics 365 to support an order titled \u201cScalable Ways to Implement Flexible Tasks (SWIFT).\u201d In a performance of work document uploaded to SAM in 2022, ICE says SWIFT involves automating miscellaneous tasks across the agency.<\/p>\n ICE has also purchased at least two \u201clicenses,\u201d which could refer to licenses for Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365 Enterprise, or something else. These licenses are for Enforcement and Removal Operations and HSI\u2019s Cyber and Operational Technology Unit (COTU), which oversees both the investigation of \u201ccyber-enabled\u201d crimes like child exploitation and data sharing to law enforcement agencies within and outside of DHS.<\/p>\n The payment description that mentions COTU also names the \u201cCALEA Network,\u201d seemingly a reference to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, the federal law requiring telecommunications providers to design their networks so that law enforcement can wiretap calls. The description does not specify how Microsoft may support CALEA compliance.<\/p>\n ICE has also purchased at least one \u201ccustomized\u201d training session for staff on using Microsoft Teams. Details on FPDS revealed that the training would be focused on developing "documents" for the management office of the 287(g) program, which deputizes enrolled state and local agencies to work with ICE. \u201cAutomated documents" are also mentioned, but nothing on FPDS reveals exactly what those may be, or what role they play in the 287(g) program.<\/p>\n Christopher Muhawe, an assistant professor of law at the University of Illinois Chicago\u2014who has studied the psychological effects the American immigration surveillance infrastructure\u2014argues that people seeking asylum or refugee status in the US, including the \u201csecurity and survival\u201d it could provide, are \u201cinherently vulnerable\u201d to the federal immigration surveillance state, and can cause anxiety and "advanced harm to someone's health."<\/p>\n \u201cThere are no adequate protections to these individuals,\u201d Muhawe says.<\/p>\n Microsoft did not return WIRED\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Amazon<\/h2>\nBoth CBP and ICE use Amazon cloud storage in support of their operations.<\/p>\n Federal payment records reveal that ICE is a customer of Amazon\u2019s \u201cGovCloud,\u201d a version of AWS that the company says has heightened security specifications for \u201csensitive workloads.\u201d According to a slide presentation uploaded to SAM, the federal award management system, in July 2023, Palantir\u2019s ICM runs on AWS.<\/p>\n The same document says that Amazon also powers \u201cICE Cloud,\u201d a crucial piece of infrastructure for the agency. ICE Cloud hosts the agency\u2019s \u201cDigital Records Manager,\u201d \u201cData Warehouse,\u201d and the \u201cLaw Enforcement Information Sharing Service\u201d (LEIS Service), according to the 2023 slide presentation. DHS described the LEIS Service in 2019 as \u201ca backend super highway data sharing system\u201d between ICE and other law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n The 2023 slide presentation shows that ICE Cloud also hosts the \u201cPRIME Interface Hub,\u201d which DHS says \u201ctransmits queries to and from\u201d two other locations. The first is ICE\u2019s Enforcement Integrated Database, which DHS says contains \u201cinvestigation, arrest, booking, detention, and removal\u201d records for people encountered or apprehended by ICE, CBP, or US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The second is \u201cTECS\u201d (which DHS says is not currently an acronym, but once stood for the \u201cTreasury Enforcement Communications System\u201d), CBP\u2019s \u201cinformation-sharing platform\u201d that allows authorized users to access CBP databases with information about anyone who entered the US by plane, ship, car, or on foot, and any assets seized at the border.<\/p>\n Amazon also powers ICE\u2019s \u201cStudent and Exchange Visitor Program Automated Information Management System,\u201d according to a September 2025 transaction. This appears to be either a functionality within, or another term for, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, which stores information about people studying in the US.<\/p>\n Two FPDS payments\u2014despite being made in 2020 and 2022, prior to the period WIRED examined\u2014are significant enough to warrant mention. They revealed that Amazon was providing infrastructure for the ICE\u2019s Repository for Analytics in a Virtualized Environment (RAVEn), a tool for agents to analyze \u201craw or unevaluated datasets\u201d\u2014including documents, photos, audio, and other data\u2014over a dozen federal databases. A DHS Office of the Inspector General report from 2023 describes RAVEn as an \u201cinternally developed\u201d tool. It includes a primary \u201csearch and analytic tool," a tool for sharing \u201clead referrals and outcomes\u201d across HSI field offices, and a mobile app.<\/p>\n RAVEn was intended at its inception to be a replacement for Palantir\u2019s FALCON. A Palantir spokesperson confirmed this, adding, \u201cas we understand it, after several years, RAVEn is no longer serviceable, having run into both cost and functionality challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n A version of the 2026 DHS Appropriations Act considered by the House of Representatives in January includes a provision claiming that HSI has "outstanding briefing requirements and requests related to RAVEn development and deployment that are overdue by more than one year." It\u2019s unclear whether Amazon has continued to support RAVEn.<\/p>\n According to a payment on FPDS, Amazon has also given CBP access to \u201cAWS Elemental Live,\u201d which provides technical infrastructure for livestreams. However, there isn\u2019t much additional information about what Amazon helps the agency do.<\/p>\n In February, dozens of "community members, activists and Amazon employees" gathered outside the company\u2019s corporate headquarters in Seattle to protest the company\u2019s work with ICE, the Seattle Times reported.<\/p>\n Amazon did not return WIRED\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Google<\/h2>\nBoth ICE and CBP use Google\u2019s cloud environment to help run their operations, though the payment descriptions for the ICE contracts reveal relatively little about how and where Google\u2019s tech is being used when compared with those from CBP. According to payment descriptions on FPDS, CBP uses Google Cloud to run its \u201cEnterprise Cloud Services Division,\u201d which the agency describes as its \u201ca Cloud governance body with authority over Cloud infrastructure and Cloud service.\u201d<\/p>\n Google has also helped CBP use generative AI for \u201cDocument Summarization and Content Generation\u201d since March of last year, alongside Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic, according to DHS documentation. It\u2019s unclear, however, what specific documents are being summarized or the CBP office that\u2019s involved.<\/p>\n According to a SAM entry last updated in February 2025, CBP\u2019s cloud-based \u201cModular Google Environment\u201d (MAGE) supports the "current infrastructure" of one of its surveillance systems. The entry relates to CBP\u2019s \u201cIntegrated Fixed Towers,\u201d the 10-foot surveillance towers that help the agency surveil remote areas of Arizona. In one environmental review, the agency said it was using the towers to find and apprehend terrorists, people crossing the border illegally, and anyone smuggling \u201chumans, drugs, and other contraband.\u201d<\/p>\n Dave Maass, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's investigations director who has studied CBP\u2019s surveillance hardware, tells WIRED that it's unclear exactly how much CBP may rely on Google for its existing operations. He adds that it\u2019s also been historically difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of CBP\u2019s surveillance tower program.<\/p>\n \u201cI've never gotten the sense that the Border Patrol has had a problem of finding people at the border,\u201d Maass says. \u201cIf anything, they have a problem finding where they're going to house these people.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this month, more than 800 Google employees signed a petition demanding the company to disclose and cancel all of its contracts with ICE and CBP.<\/p>\n Google did not return WIRED\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Save StorySave this storySave StorySave this story As the federal immigration crackdown has expanded across the United States, the government\u2019s activities have relied on infrastructure from several key tech companies. The defense tech and IT infrastructure giant Palantir has received particular attention for its work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. However, when it comes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46750,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-46749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |