Immigration and Customs Enforcement has quietly turned facial recognition into a roaming checkpoint that can follow people from sidewalks to protests to traffic stops. What began as a back office tool is now embedded in phones, cameras, and city infrastructure, creating a system that can identify almost anyone in public in seconds. I am looking at how that network is being built, who it targets, and why its reach now extends far beyond undocumented immigrants.
At the center is a growing web of government databases, commercial camera feeds, and mobile apps that convert every captured face into a potential lead. The result is a form of street-level surveillance that treats everyday life as a source of biometric evidence, with few clear rules and even fewer ways to opt out.
From databases to the sidewalk: ICE’s AI expansion
Inside the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now listed in an official artificial intelligence inventory that details how the agency is using algorithms to analyze images, video, and personal data. That inventory describes how ICE is feeding biometric information into systems that can match faces against vast government holdings. I see that as the backbone of a broader strategy, one that turns every new image captured in the field into another query against those AI powered repositories.
That back end capability is what makes it possible for immigration agents flooding into neighborhoods to carry a new surveillance toolkit that includes facial recognition, license plate readers, and other sensors. In one widely shared account, immigration agents were described as flooding streets with phones and cameras that can instantly check who they are looking at. When those devices are wired back into centralized AI systems, the line between a routine patrol and a biometric dragnet becomes very thin.
Mobile Fortify and the rise of phone based face scans
The most visible symbol of this shift is a mobile app called Mobile Fortify, which turns an officer’s phone into a portable face scanner. Civil liberties advocates have described how Mobile Fortify is being used by ICE and CBP to snap a photo of a person’s face and run it against immigration and criminal databases in real time. I see that as a profound change in power at the curbside, because the officer no longer needs a name or ID card to start an investigation, only a camera and a signal.
Officials have acknowledged that So Mobile Fortify is ICE’s and now Custom and Border Protection’s facial recognition app, and that an ICE officer can point their mobile phone at someone and get a match result in seconds. In one detailed explanation, So Mobile Fortify was described as letting An ICE officer capture a face in a crowd and immediately see immigration records tied to that person. When that capability is paired with the agency’s AI enhanced databases, it effectively moves the border checkpoint to any street corner.
How field agents turn every encounter into biometric data
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not limited facial recognition to a few specialized teams. Homeland Security Surveillance reporting shows that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is acquiring powerful new surveillance tools to identify people during raids, traffic stops, and workplace operations, and that Homeland Security Surveillance systems are being wired into those encounters. It is not clear which specific vendors are supplying all of the software, but records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show a steady expansion of contracts for image analysis and tracking tools.
On the ground, that technology looks like agents using smartphones loaded with sophisticated facial recognition technology, in addition to professional grade photo equipment, to scan both targets and bystanders. One account described how officers were using Mobile Fortify to take pictures of cars, license plates, and faces as people tried to board a bus safely. When every interaction can be turned into a biometric record, the practical effect is that anyone near an immigration operation risks being pulled into a database, regardless of their status.
From protests to traffic stops: who gets swept in
Facial recognition is not only being used in immigration raids, it is also following people into political spaces. Internal documents and footage have shown how ICE’s use of facial recognition has extended to identifying people at demonstrations, including protests in Minneapolis, even when None of those protesters had given consent for their faces to be recorded. In one detailed reconstruction, None of the people whose images were ingested into the system had been told that their faces would be converted into digital profiles.
At the same time, masked agents have been documented rapping on car windows during traffic stops, demanding that drivers like Martinez produce ID, and then holding a cellphone inches from Martinez’s face to capture an image for a scan. One such encounter in Minneapolis was described as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, with Masked officers using Then their phones as biometric scanners. I see those scenes as evidence that the technology is not confined to border crossings or detention centers, it is being used in ordinary city streets where citizens and noncitizens alike can be swept into the same net.
How the matching pipeline actually works
Behind every quick scan on a sidewalk is a more complex pipeline that turns a face into a machine readable identity. Detailed technical descriptions show how an ICE agent’s camera records an image of a face, Software finds the face in the image, and then converts it into a digital profile that can be compared against a database of millions of stored faces. When that An ICE system reports a possible match, the agent is effectively being handed a suggested identity that can shape the rest of the encounter.
Critics argue that this pipeline is being deployed recklessly, without adequate testing for bias or error rates. One analysis noted that this year, ICE began deploying facial recognition in the field for the first time, a departure from past practices where it was only used in controlled settings, and warned that ICE is now relying on automated matches to decide whether someone is an alien. I see a particular danger in that shift, because a false positive in a noisy street scene can quickly escalate into detention or deportation based on an algorithm’s guess.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
