Palantir Documents Expose How Trump Administration Tracks Migrants for Deportation

Two new troves of internal documents from Palantir, a data surveillance company based in Colorado, have shone a light on how computer programmers are designing new software to help the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) track and deport thousands of people.

The first set of documents were leaked to 404 Media April 2025 and the second set of documents were obtained in September by Just Futures Law, a legal NGO, through a Freedom of Information Act request. Together the documents reveal the sheer size and scope of Palantir’s dragnet that vacuums up digital data of everyday activity to create detailed profiles of individuals across the U.S.

“ICE can use this type of surveillance apparatus on anyone – not only anyone who is undocumented but anyone who this administration wants to criminalize and anyone who the administration wants to put under surveillance,” Jacinta González, head of programs at digital rights non-profit MediaJustice, told the Guardian newspaper.

Palantir was founded in 2003 and bankrolled by In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, to build data analysis and surveillance tools for many U.S. military and national security agencies. In the first six months of this year alone, Palantir banked $322 million in federal contracts.

In 2014, Palantir won a contract to build a tool called Falcon for an ICE division named Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Most recently HSI paid Palantir $30 million to build another software program called ImmigrationOS.  

The original contract allowed ICE personnel to track the hourly locations of specific individuals using their cell phone numbers and add in data from air travel records via the Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) as well as other datasets like the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) as well as field interviews.

While the original contract was signed during the presidency of Barack Obama, the contract was dramatically expanded under the second presidency of Donald Trump for an ICE division named Enforcement and Removals Operations (ERO). 

“Hey all, wanted to provide a quick update on our work with ICE,” Akash Jain, the Chief Technology Officer of Palantir Technologies and President of Palantir USG, wrote in a Slack message this past April, according to a memo uncovered by 404 Media. “Over the last few weeks we prototyped a new set of data integrations and workflows with ICE. The new administration's focus on leveraging data to drive enforcement operations has accelerated those efforts.”

Indeed ICE confirmed this in a public document justifying the new contract. “No other vendor could meet these timeframes of having the infrastructure in place to meet this urgent requirement and deliver a prototype in less than six months,” ICE states in the document.

A recent report from CNN suggests that Palantir’s new ImmigrationOS system will use artificial intelligence systems to allow immigration agents “to approve raids, book arrests, generate legal documents, and route individuals to deportation flights or detention — all from a single interface.”

“The new deepening of Palantir’s ties with ICE through these new contracts is alarming for the human rights of dozens of immigrants and people seeking safety in the United States," Likhita Banerji, deputy director of the Amnesty Tech program at Amnesty International, told El Pais newspaper. "These technologies can systemically fuel racism, discrimination, and oppression, and are routinely used to further racist and xenophobic agendas.”

Indeed, 13 former Palantir employees recently signed a letter condemning the new contracts. “Companies are placating Trump’s administration, suppressing dissent, and aligning with his xenophobic, sexist, and oligarchic agenda,” they wrote in May 2025. “Big Tech, including Palantir, is increasingly complicit, normalizing authoritarianism under the guise of a 'revolution' led by oligarchs."

The company’s technology has even drawn criticism from top Silicon Valley investors. “If you’re a first-rate programmer, there are a huge number of other places you can go work rather than at the company building the infrastructure of the police state," Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, which provided seed funding to companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Dropbox, Instacart and Reddit, wrote on Twitter.  

Palantir quickly hit back. “We work to attach the steering wheel to the car and revitalize the institutions our societal fabric depends upon," Ted Mabrey, the head of Palantir Technologies, replied on Twitter. "We are looking for people who read something like this post and think it is crazy to demonize working towards a more effective government."

Graham refused to back down. "I'll be happy to delete [the comment on the police state] if you commit publicly on behalf of Palantir not to build things that help the government violate the U.S. constitution," he wrote back on Twitter. "Will you do that, Ted?"