Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine formally asked the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate and provide details on many of the surveillance technologies being used by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a copy of the letter shared with 404 Media.
The letter touches on many of the surveillance technologies and companies that 404 Media has been writing about in recent months, including Flock license plate readers, Penlink social media and location data monitoring, Clearview AI’s facial recognition tech, Paragon Solutions’ phone hacking technology, as well as other social media scanning and biometric collection databases used by DHS in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“We are deeply concerned that ICE’s surge in brutality against American communities is being facilitated by the inappropriate and unsupervised use of surveillance technology,” the senators wrote. “As such, we formally request an investigation by your office into the methods that DHS uses to collect, retain, analyze, and use data about the communities where it operates in conjunction with the companies mentioned above, and any companies DHS is seeking to conduct business with–for similar purposes—in the future.”
The letter then demands that Joseph Cuffari, the Inspector General for DHS, provide information about how DHS obtains, processes, and stores people’s sensitive data, whether it keeps track of false positive and incorrect identities returned with its biometric surveillance tools, whether it keeps track of times its surveillance tools are used against U.S. citizens, how it shares information with private companies, and how it obtains information from other federal agencies. It also seeks information about DHS’s relationships with data brokers, whether it allows people to opt out of surveillance, and any privacy protections around some of the data it obtains.
While the letter itself seems unlikely to change anything about how ICE is operating in the field, these types of information gathering exercises from lawmakers often result in new details about the inner workings of surveillance programs and tools and can eventually lead to reform.
“In addition to egregious practices we have seen in public reporting, it’s important that your office shine light on activities that undergird ICE’s enforcement actions including a muddled patchwork of technology procurements that have significantly expanded DHS’ ability to collect, retain, and analyze information about Americans,” they wrote. “Together, ICE’s new information collection tools potentially enable DHS to circumvent the constitutional protections provided by the Fourth Amendment—protections guaranteed to all Americans and all persons within our borders.”
The Trump administration has sought to undercut inspectors general across the federal government; soon after he was inaugurated, Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general. Cuffari, who was appointed during Trump’s first term and served under Joe Biden as well, was one of the few inspectors general who was left in his post. In 2024, an independent panel found that Cuffari had violated ethics rules during this confirmation process and recommended that he be replaced, but Biden left him in his role.
