Documents show ICE wants a nonstop social media surveillance system

Marketplace Tech

American Public Media

Technology, News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to set up an around-the-clock social media surveillance network, according to public documents reviewed by WIRED magazine.

Under the proposal, ICE would partner with private contractors to monitor platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for information and leads that can be passed on to officers in the field.

Marketplace’s Nova Safo spoke with Dell Cameron, senior writer at WIRED who broke the story, about the proposed structure of this new surveillance program.

Transcript

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0:57.7	ICE wants to survey social media for immigration enforcement. From American public media,
1:03.1	this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Navasop. Immigration and customs enforcement wants to set up an around-the-clock social media surveillance network.
1:20.6	That's according to Wired Magazine, which reviewed public documents.
1:24.3	Under the proposal, ICE would partner with private contractors to monitor platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for information and leads that can be passed on to officers in the field.
1:35.5	Del Cameron at Wired broke the story. I asked him about the proposed structure of this new surveillance program.
1:41.7	So there's two separate teams. One of them's going to the National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center, which is in Vermont.
1:50.5	There's also the Pacific Enforcement Response Center, which is in Santa Ana, California, which
1:55.3	handles the West Coast.
1:56.9	They're going to have two small teams stationed there.
2:00.1	At least one of them is going to be working 24 hours, so around the clock. And I should like preface all of this by saying these are proposals. So the government has issued a declaration about the type of work that it's interested in having private contractors do for it to see what kind of bids it can get proposals they can receive in return.
2:19.7	But this whole system is really running on artificial intelligence.
2:23.0	It's running on algorithms.
	...

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