Here's the tech powering ICE's deportation crackdown | TechCrunch

"President Donald Trump made countering immigration one of his flagship issues during last year's presidential campaign, promising an unprecedented number of deportations. In his first eight months in office, that promise turned into around 350,000 deportations, a figure that includes deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE (around 200,000), Customs and Border Protection (more than 132,000), and almost 18,000 self-deportations, according to CNN."

"ICE has a technology known as cell-site simulators to snoop on cellphones. These surveillance devices, as the name suggests, are designed to appear as a cellphone tower, tricking nearby phones to connect to them. Once that happens, the law enforcement authorities who are using the cell-site simulators can locate and identify the phones in their vicinity, and potentially intercept calls, text messages, and internet traffic."

"Cell-site simulators are also known as "stingrays," based on the brand name of one of the earliest versions of the technology, which was made by U.S. defense contractor Harris (now L3Harris); or IMSI catchers, a technology that can capture a nearby cell phone's unique identifier which law enforcement can use for identifying the phone's owner. In the last two years, ICE has signed contracts for more than $1.5 million with a company called TechOps Specialty Vehicles (TOSV), which produces customized vans for law enforcement."

President Donald Trump prioritized expanded deportations, resulting in about 350,000 removals in his first eight months, including roughly 200,000 by ICE, more than 132,000 by Customs and Border Protection, and nearly 18,000 self-deportations. ICE has conducted raids in homes, workplaces, and public parks to find undocumented immigrants. ICE deploys technologies for identifying and surveilling individuals and communities, notably cell-site simulators that mimic cellphone towers to trick phones into connecting, enabling location, identification, and potential interception of calls, texts, and internet traffic. ICE purchased customized vehicles to house and deploy such equipment through contracts totaling over $1.5 million.

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