House Democrats are moving to slow the rapid spread of mobile facial recognition and fingerprint tools inside the Department of Homeland Security, zeroing in on how agents use phones to scan people on the street and at the border. Their new proposal would sharply restrict Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s reliance on these apps and force the department to write clear rules before more biometric data is scooped up in the field.
At stake is whether federal officers can keep pointing cameras at faces and collecting fingerprints with few limits, or whether Congress will draw bright lines around when and how those tools can be used. The bill’s backers argue that without guardrails, mobile biometrics risk turning routine encounters with the government into rolling ID checkpoints for anyone who looks like an immigrant or lives in a heavily policed community.
The bill that targets Mobile Fortify
The push is being led by U.S. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, who has introduced legislation to curb what he calls unchecked mobile biometric surveillance by the Department of Homeland Security. In a detailed proposal, Ranking Member Thompson frames the issue as a basic question of whether DHS can deploy powerful surveillance tools outside lawful and appropriate contexts. He is particularly focused on the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s use of Mobile Fortify, a phone application that lets agents run facial recognition and fingerprint checks in real time.
Thompson’s bill explicitly targets that app, describing the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement program as a test case for how far mobile surveillance can go without congressional intervention. Local reporting notes that the measure is designed to limit the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement use of Mobile Fortify and similar tools, which can capture a person’s face or fingerprints and instantly query federal databases. By singling out a named app, the bill moves beyond abstract privacy principles and into the concrete architecture of DHS technology.
How ICE’s mobile biometrics work in the field
Mobile Fortify sits at the center of the controversy because it collapses what used to be a multi-step identification process into a single tap on an agent’s phone. According to Democratic committee materials, ICE’s use of Mobile Fortify allows officers to determine a person’s legal status by scanning their face or fingerprints and comparing those biometrics against immigration and law enforcement records. That capability effectively turns any sidewalk, workplace, or traffic stop into a potential status check, even when the person has not been arrested or formally accused of a crime.
Critics inside Congress argue that this kind of on-the-spot screening is an outrageous affront to civil rights and civil liberties because it invites profiling and dragnet surveillance. In their view, letting agents use Mobile Fortify to determine a person’s legal status based on a quick scan risks normalizing suspicionless checks that would never pass muster if they involved traditional paperwork or in-person interviews. Thompson’s office has described Mobile Fortify as a dangerous precedent, not just a single program, because it shows how quickly biometric checks can be pushed outside controlled environments like ports of entry.
What the legislation would actually do
At the heart of the proposal is a requirement that the Department of Homeland Security Secretary write binding rules for every component that wants to use mobile biometrics. The legislation would require the DHS Secretary to establish department-wide standards within 30 days of enactment that strictly limit when and how agents can run facial recognition or fingerprint scans in the field. Reporting on the bill notes that these standards would have to address issues like data retention, sharing with other agencies, and the circumstances under which officers can compel someone to submit to a scan, with DHS directed to rein in open-ended use.
Along with restricting the app’s use by ICE or other components of the Department of Homeland Security, the bill would require DHS to report back to Congress on how mobile biometrics are being deployed and what safeguards are in place. A cybersecurity policy summary explains that, along with limiting Mobile Fortify, the House bill would constrain any similar tools used by ICE or other parts of the Department of Homeland Security, while also mandating that DHS document how those technologies affect privacy. That structure reflects a broader shift in Congress toward pairing new limits with transparency requirements so lawmakers can track whether agencies are actually changing their behavior.
Democrats’ broader push to rein in DHS biometrics
The Mobile Fortify bill is not an isolated effort, it is part of a wider campaign by House Democrats to put brakes on DHS surveillance apps. Coverage of the proposal notes that House Democrats are eyeing limits on mobile biometric surveillance apps for DHS, with the new legislation setting department-wide rules and naming Immigration and Customs Enforcement tools as the prime targets. In that context, the measure reads less like a one-off response to a single program and more like a template for how Congress might regulate future apps that combine facial recognition, fingerprint scanning, and database access, a point underscored in reporting on House Democrats and their focus on DHS.
Thompson’s role as the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee gives the bill added weight inside his caucus. A tech policy roundup notes that the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee introduced a bill to curtail Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s use of biometric tools, situating it alongside other efforts to create civil rights offices for AI and expand veterans’ education benefits. That framing suggests Democrats see ICE’s mobile biometrics as part of a larger pattern in which emerging technologies, from facial recognition to automated decision systems, need dedicated oversight, a view reflected in coverage of the House Homeland Security Democrat’s agenda.
A clash with DHS’s expansionist biometric agenda
The timing of the bill is striking because it lands just as DHS is moving in the opposite direction on biometrics. In a proposed rule issued earlier, the Department of Homeland Security outlined plans to expand biometric requirements for immigration purposes, including collecting more types of data from more categories of applicants. Legal analysis of that proposal explains that the Department of Homeland Security would remove age limits on biometric collection, broaden the definition of biometrics to include modalities like voice prints and DNA, and authorize continuous vetting of individuals in the United States until they obtain citizenship, as described in a detailed review of DHS plans.
That same expansionist posture shows up in internal regulatory filings from Citizenship and Immigration Services, a component of the Department of Homeland Security. In a notice published for public comment, Citizenship and Immigration Services, also known as USCIS, described how it would implement broader biometric collection under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella, including new categories of applicants and co-applicants, as laid out in a public USCIS document. When I put those regulatory moves next to the House bill, I see a clear collision course: DHS is building an infrastructure for continuous biometric monitoring, while key Democrats are trying to wall off at least one of the most aggressive front-line tools from that system.
More from Morning Overview