Why more immigrants are being tracked with ankle monitors – and who profits

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

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Summary

ICE is expanding a controversial surveillance program. Today, our reporter shares how he learned about it, and what The Post uncovered about the company that stands to profit.

Last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement directed personnel to sharply increase the number of immigrants they shackle with GPS-enabled ankle monitors. ICE is targeting about 183,000 people with the expansion of the policy, all enrolled in the agency’s Alternatives to Detention program.

The move marks a significant expansion of a 20-year-old surveillance practice steeped in controversy. While tracking devices are cheaper and arguably more humane than detention, immigrants and their advocates have long criticized the government’s use of the bulky black ankle bands, which they say are physically uncomfortable and impose a social stigma for the people wearing them, many of whom have no criminal record or history of missed court appointments.

Today on “Post Reports,” corporate accountability reporter Douglas MacMillan joins Elahe Izadi to discuss why the agency is expanding this program and who stands to benefit.

Today’s show was produced by Rennie Svirnovskiy. It was edited by Maggie Penman and mixed by Sean Carter. Thanks to Silvia Foster-Frau, Tadeo Ruiz Sandoval, Sabby Robinson and Christine Armario.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Paola Diaz is a mother of two. She's 29 years old and from Honduras. And last month, she was told to report to an ICE contractor's office in Virginia. That's immigration and customs enforcement. She didn't know what to expect. She said, they don't tell you why you have to go.
0:26.4	She said, the majority of people say that, like,
0:28.2	maybe not you present, and all that, because they can deport or something.
0:33.2	She said, the majority of people tell you that maybe you shouldn't show up because they could deport you or something.
0:41.9	Up until this point, Paola thought she'd been doing everything right.
0:46.3	She left Honduras in 2021 to escape an abusive husband.
0:51.3	She said he was on drugs, alcohol, and all of that.
0:54.9	It's like, like, in the drugs, in the arphol and all of that. Last time we saw each other,
1:06.5	he tried to kill my boy and me. So Paola fled to the United States. She crossed the border and
1:14.3	filed an asylum claim. And as she's waited, she's gone to all of her court appointments.
1:20.8	She's done mandatory mobile app check-ins. Anything the government asked her to do, she did.
1:28.2	So that's why, when she was called into this Virginia office, she felt like she had to go.
1:34.2	So she was in this office with about 50 other people who were all in a similar position to her.
1:40.2	They didn't really know why they were there.
1:42.6	That's Doug McMillan, a corporate accountability reporter for The Post.
1:46.8	He and our colleagues, Sylvia Foster Frau, spoke with Paola last month about her experience.
1:52.8	And we should say we're calling Paola by her middle name because she's afraid of government retribution.
1:58.4	Eventually, they called her back, and they told her that she had to get
2:03.1	outfitted with an ankle monitor, which would track her every movement and also limit her
2:10.2	geographical location to Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. And basically, every time they told her that she left those areas, that her device would send a ping to her case manager who would then call her and warn her.
2:28.1	She was violated in terms of her release or they could potentially escalate the matter to ICE.
2:33.6	Paola said she was surprised by this new level of surveillance, an ankle monitor.
	...

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