ICE Will Use AI to Surveil Social Media
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heated
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negative
Category
politics
Key topics
surveillance
immigration
AI
ICE plans to use AI for social media surveillance, sparking concerns about privacy, government overreach, and the potential for abuse of power.
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- 01Story posted
10/27/2025, 12:43:32 AM
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10/29/2025, 11:36:49 PM
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>You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.
– George Orwell, 1984
:(
The concept of perfectly, uniformly and constantly emotion every law in the books is completely absurd. We need to figure out how to deal with that.
This is the danger of surveillance tech: you install it for purportedly good reasons, but once the power to monitor everyone to this level exists, it becomes very easy to start pushing towards more control, both legally and illegally.
For instance 1984 also is very clear about how this system is engineered for the survival of the inner party, effectively immortal.
No. Either stand by your opinion or don't waste our time on it.
Intention of the law > letter of the law.
It depends _why_ you did it. This is the precise reason why we have courts and juries. Jury nullification exists for a reason. Laws are not meant to be a rote set of rules and punishments to dole out mechanically.
Ice Agents: "Is <name> here illegally?" AI prompt: "you're absolutely right!"
I hear that lazy LEOs now use AI to write police reports. Noice. And the AI can trivially show up for hearings.
Just like other ML and big data LEO projects in the past, assume the use of AI is to greenlight what they already want to do and would like a fig leaf of justification for from a computer.
What has changed is the “messaging” around the topic. This is very common with the Trump administration. When all is said and done, when exceptions are made/bought, and the courts and others get involved, it ends up not being much of a needle move. BUT, what is different every time is the messaging. And I have come to believe, that is what the actual goal is to some degree. The real goal is to send a message to people who are immigrants OR (and this is important) look like immigrants. It’s a message of “remember your place” and “be grateful you get to be here”. It’s the same type of tactics that gets sent to Asian communities, black communities, women, etc.
I am white. I am a male. I am 55. I oscillate between despondently sad and disgusted.
Not even a little bit. No one is taking jobs away from citizens or legal immigrants (locals don't want those jobs, either at all, or at the wages offered), rampant "migrant crime" is a myth created and perpetuated by the right (immigrants commit crime at lower rates than citizens), and to top it off, the American economy depends on many of these migrant workers in order to function (often in exploitative ways; explicitly allowing and supporting this type of migration would make things safer for everyone).
It's othering and racism, plain and simple.
I'm not saying we should just open the floodgates and let anyone and everyone in, and I'm not saying we shouldn't deport non-citizens who commit violent crime, but the "crisis" is entirely manufactured.
It sure is, the US government has been underfunding the judicial body responsible for adjudicating asylum claims for years and years. As a result there are indeed people here in status limbo.
Wether or not they should be granted some kind of residency is kind of irrelevant, politicians are happy for this to be a problem they can use.
Even now, they aren’t increasing the rate of process, they’re just blowing the cash on mass surveillance.
I would appreciate a job in construction or at a restaurant for example. Teenagers would benefit from such jobs as well. Not available.
Your absolute assertions are myopic at best.
Doesn't seem to be a problem with any motivated person I know.
There are other reasonings (prevailing wage, location, etc.), but likewise, your "absolute assertion" that undocumented workers have been taking job opportunities from you is also not entirely ... absolute.
Sorry but i absolutely despise this argument as someone who did the job that "locals don't want" and knew others that did. It's cheap and very right wing classism by the privileged. Essentially only the last bit is true and the last bit is true because there is a cheap alternative that doesn't involve much unionization either.
Mind you I'm in western europe and the other arguments don't hold up either here but that first one is universally shit.
Of course, this doesn't mean that allowing 0 immigration in is the right solution, or preventing immigrants from working. And I should also point out that, generally, US leaders have the least amount of problem with this aspect of immigration - even now, Trump has instructed ICE not to go for deporting agricultural and tourism workers in any mass numbers.
Every argument that starts like this ends up defending a pyramid scheme.
So either you increase the retirement age significantly or you have to expand the base.
And all of this to serve dying generations when those younger than me starting out get ever increasingly shafted.
Here in Belgium pension plans existed that did not work like that. Then the socialist raided these funds and the future generations were going to pay for those pensions. My family's criticism was that they could only do that once and they were right.
I don't tie this issue to socialists tho. 2 decades ago the liberals(european, right wing) did the same to the railways who had a separate pension fund and more recently yet another party suggested doing the same for a 3rd pillar of selfemployed people.
I like my cultured friends. USA is a melting pot, not a white-man-country. This is all xenophobia.
> poor finances
sounds right for asylum seekers
> nation's resources, infrastructure, housing shortages, burdens public services like healthcare, and contributes to economic friction[??] amid existing downturns,
sounds like policy problems; and these are the priorities of the people i vote for too, none of this has to do with immigrants.
> Countries are not homeless shelters or free handouts
no, this is exactly what i expect my country (government) to handle
> Uncontrolled influx of millions
this is pretty tightly controlled, you can find the data from the census and see that the population is not at all fluctuating and very linear. Should be trivial to plan ahead about how many people are in the country. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...
> This is why sovereign states implement rigorous and dynamic immigration controls and capacity limits based on the nation's ability at the time. There has to be sustainable absorption. vet whoever comes into your house
this is true, and I dont believe its not happening. i was asking what is happening that's a crisis. Trump's policies are _mass deportation_. They are extreme. Legal immigrants, are having visas revoked without reason, and even green card holders are being arrested without cause. Violations of the 4th amendment. Immigrants are arrested at court houses, where the vetting takes place, you know, by _judges_.
> they are the result of blood and tears of the patriots who fought and died to create, defend, and build that nation.
like my immigrant grandpop, achieved the american dream
oh thanks for clarifying which type of scum you are
The type that is cultured, educated, honors parents, and builds a traditional family unit, rooted in truth, logic, nature, God, and common sense. The type that admires the renaissance and western civilization. The type that has no problems being thankful for great civilizations, like Israel, Rome, Greece, and the amazing USA.
In other words, everything you hate.
No, I'm a legal, darker-skinned immigrant with lots of culture. Btw, I respect and admire the white race more than any other, even my own.
> mass migration is tightly controlled
Because of Trump. I remember months when Biden wouldn't bat an eye at 7-8 million who entered illegally in a single month.
> poor asylum seekers...
I'm an actual asylum seeker because the Venezuelan government contracted kidnappers to try to take out my family (I'm not getting into details). My family has integrity, works hard, was a good match for the country, and we were accepted. The US was NOT responsible for taking us in. I am thankful, not entitled.
> immigrant grandpa.
Good, and I'm sure he wouldn't have agreed to let strangers into the country without vetting.
You might not think that, but have you ever complained about housing prices? That food at the grocery store costs more than it did a few years ago? The price of consumer goods in general?
Well, you're not buying those things. You're bidding on them. And the more people there are, here, the higher those prices will be bid upwards.
> the more people there are, here, the higher those prices will be bid upwards
Who do you think is picking most of that food? And if the wages for those jobs went up to an American living wage, what do you think would happen to the price of food even with a bit lower demand?
I know it's all too easy and comforting to throw out knee-jerk comments cheerleading for government power, but at least try applying some basic analysis to what you write.
Your mistake is in believing that even if I answered this question with the answer you consider correct, that this would change my position.
>And if the wages for those jobs went up to an American living wage, what do you think would happen to the price of food even with a bit lower demand?
"I like to exploit immigrants and underpay them, because my out-of-season fruit will be too high for my smoothy frappucinos!" Silly things leftists say, haha.
>I know it's all too easy and comforting to throw out knee-jerk comments cheerleading for government power,
I'm not especially a big fan of government power. But I live in a country being held hostage by lunatic ideologues who think non-citizens should have the absolute right to live here, but only because they hope to stack the vote against their political opponents. So there's not really that many options left. Things will have to get far worse before they can get any better.
I'm not asking you to change your position, but rather to be honest about the effects of it.
> "I like to exploit immigrants and underpay them, because my out-of-season fruit will be too high for my smoothy frappucinos!"
I did not say anything of the sort, rather I acknowledged the current reality. One can also say "I want farm workers to be system legible, primarily Americans, and paid a living wage, even though it will make grocery prices go up". That's a consistent position. We can have honest discussions about those things. I don't think anybody actually likes the status quo.
> Silly things leftists say, haha
I know fascists have defined everything short of gushing praise for Dear Leader as the rAdIcAl lEfT, but I'm actually a libertarian.
> I live in a country being held hostage by lunatic ideologues who think non-citizens should have the absolute right to live here
Please explain how it's being "held hostage" when the party in power is enacting the exact opposite.
> So there's not really that many options left. Things will have to get far worse before they can get any better.
Sorry no, there are plenty of other options to institute the immigration policy you want here - which wouldn't require adding to the surveillance pantopticon, further empowering a domestic military, or trampling the Constitution and our natural rights.
So what we've actually got is a second issue of how those things are being carried out, supposedly in the name of doing something about immigration. But given how wholly anti-liberty and anti-American those actions are, and how there are already policy floaters on relaxing the hardline stance for "critical" industries reliant on cheap illegal labor, it begs the question of whether the immigration topic is even the main thrust here - or whether it's simply a pretext for autocratic authoritarian power for power's sake.
> I'm not especially a big fan of government power
Sorry, but yes you are. You're shunning the entire idea of limited constitutional government and inalienable constitutional/natural rights, seemingly because you like these particular results of crass authoritarianism. That's statism 101.
High housing prices is a complex mix of underbuilding due to zoning laws, companies buying up housing stock to rent, and (a few years ago) very low interest rates. One thing that is _not_ a factor is immigrants, because they are at the bottom of the social pile and usually can't get mortgages to buy houses.
It very much is how all goods work, unfortunately. Food (except grain) doesn't travel or store well. If 100 million people left North America tomorrow, North America wouldn't start shipping the food for 100 million people to them whereever they went. Pretending otherwise might help you maintain faith in whatever religion you have that demands it be true, I suppose, but it's economically illiterate to claim otherwise.
>High housing prices is a complex mix of underbuilding
Or it's a simple answer of over-immigrating.
>because they are at the bottom of the social pile and usually can't get mortgages to buy houses.
Are they sleeping in ditches? No. They live somewhere. Because they live in those places, those places aren't available for non-immigrants to live in. It's really simple. They rent apartments, do they not? When demand outstrips supply, prices rise. When demand for apartments rise, even the price of houses goes up, because these things can substitute for one another to some degree.
That’s really what happened. The population doubled in 15 years and people moved (people always move). It’s just more people now. So naturally you’ll see more immigrants.
Here's reality: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-...
I reject that. There is a steadily worsening crisis, even the current labour government have acknowledged that pledging to take lots of action against it, both now and during the election campaign. Specifically small boat crossings, of which more then 43,000 have already arrived this year. There is not a single politician in this country who doesn't admit that there is a serious problem.
This is a skill issue.
1. Conditions in the UK might not be good enough, so we should prevent people from immigrating, for their own good, and 2. Fixing problems that create refugees is more important and therefore another reason we should prevent people from immigrating.
To which I say
1. That's a reason we should clean our own house, so we create a safe environment for people looking to come to the UK, and 2. That's a non sequitur at best, and honestly callous; you should try fleeing from war and persecution, and then see how you would feel about returning home to wait for a few more years while 'things get sorted out back home'.
Again, correct me if I have misrepresented your implied argument.
Why would anyone believe this? It's such a strange thing to say, and one would have to be an absolute fool to believe it.
Multiple of them believe this. One mentioned it, after she left I turned to my other coworker to say "that was some crazy stuff she was saying" only to be met with, "Hey, it's happening. A lot of federal money goes missing and this is exactly where it's going."
It's a complete disconnect from reality that's malleable to any form desired.
The Trump administration loves gaudy numbers like this. Common sense tells you that's a lot of movement in too short of time. Until they release evidence of these numbers, please do not spread this misinformation.
Like, say we assume it's true: There are 340 million people in the US. That's less than 1% of the current population leaving. I really doubt anybody would notice much of a difference.
> A recent study from the United Nations reported that President Trump’s immigration policies led to a 97% reduction in illegal aliens heading northbound to the U.S. from Central America.
And you find that the document they link does not support their assertion, and in face the "97%" refers to:
> The migrants who returned during the period were primarily Venezuelan nationals, accounting for 97% of the documented southward flow, with most heading to neighboring Colombia.
It's comically bad deception, only people who continuously traffic in lies all day long would even publish something like this.
I think more governments around the world are catching on to the idea that your majority population can excuse a large amount of economic mismanagement and bad geopolitical strategy if you blame foreigners who arrived after your decline started.
If a satisfactory amount of foreigners are removed, the technology will still be there and the defense contractors will still need contracts. If there are no viable foreign adversaries at that point, then another domestic target will be needed.
According to the current administration, who have a ... not exactly sterling ... reputation for accuracy and honesty in reporting.
They did not "leave" the US, they were deported without due process.
> though NSA and google have been doing it for years
That does not make it less dismal
> less scope for this to be abused against american citizens unlike in the UK
There are agencies in the US that do as they please without needing to cooperate with anyone. Not sure how you arrived in that conclusion.
Yeah, that would just about cover the cost of a pizza party in the AI world. You also can look at "Zignal Labs". The website looks like 100% snakeoil.
I have no doubt that ICE would love to have some AI-based software to detect illegal immigrants, but I doubt it's more effective than just regular datamining.
Take that, apply it to here, and it's clear that effectiveness would actually be counterproductive.
We are not fixing the root cause here even if you believe that immigration is bad for the country. It’s just a farce.
The recent ICE shenanigans (which don’t get me wrong - are awful and badly executed) are just performative bullshit to please the voter base. In fact I’d argue they are intentionally executed badly to attract media attention so they can all say they are being tough on immigrants.
They want people to stop coming here, and the threat of being sent to some torture camp in the third world won’t deter a Haitian (whose daily life already meets that description) but it will deter people from less atrocious locations.
I don't know much about him but aren't his grand parents Belarusians who came over to the US?
pulling up the ladder behind you isn't a new concept
> The USA can tolerate one of these two things. A system of no welfare, no social services, no socialized medicine, food or housing with open borders. OR. No open boarders and highly limited, highly controlled, assimilating immigration policy. We cannot have both. When the USA had unlimited immigration over 100 years ago, we did not have Government supporting immigrants with welfare, medical services, housing, food etc.
I don't agree with Mr. Gallo here - I'm just sharing what a popular RW response is on this.
Public policy discussions always get boiled down to some simple wording that isn't strictly accurate.
The policy in my red state is to spend public funds to treat unliked immigrants as harshly as possible, deny social welfare to citizens in need and prioritize gov resources for admin loyalists. At least it is now that courts are sufficiently captured.
How'd that work out for those native americans again? Maybe I'm a little reluctant to let things play out the way it did for them.
To the extent that it is comparable we would be absolutely justified in regulating immigration because the implication would be that the same thing that we did to the native americans is going to happen to us.
Its also not in any way reasonable to use the sins of the distant ancestor to delegitimize the nation's right to self-determination. Even if i accept your premise that my ancestors are comparable to immigrants i myself am not. If the argument is that the nation has no rights to control its own borders because that would constitute some sort of "generational hypocrisy" that would also mean we have an obligation to accommodate slavery and genocide because our ancestors committed and benefitted from both of those.
These people aren't anti-immigrant because of issues with immigration. They're anti-immigrant because they're hateful.
It's truly saddening that such a stance can still work when it's likely the average citizen will not encounter an immigrant in their day to day life. a million immigrants is not threatening the jobs of 300m Japanese people.
You are correct that we do not threaten jobs either. A large majority of the foreign population is working low/unskilled jobs. Generally, the native population is not wanting those jobs.
Tourists are short-term visitors who are there exclusively to spend their money in Japan and leave it with its citizens. If the Japanese do not want that because the tourists don't come fully prepared for living in Japan, then you should just deny tourist entries to the country. It would be win-win for everyone, because there are plenty of other countries who would gladly take those tourists instead.
They get blamed for a lot of crime; idk if that's true or not but it probably is, in part because American culture has less respect for authority, in part because American culture has more respect for individual liberties, and in part because any time you have a large enclave of foreigners (regardless of where they come from or which host nation they're in) they always end up committing more crime than the native population. They also get blamed for driving up prices in the real-estate market (this is definitely true, the US Navy owns 20% of Okinawa).
Blaming "immigrants" instead of specifically blaming the US military is also very convenient for both the US and Japanese government because both governments are largely in-favor of continuing the status quo so it's not surprising that politicians would obfuscate the source of the problem by blaming immigrants as a whole.
There is definitely a phenomenon of people sometimes supporting candidates on the basis that their ethnicity won't be used to criticize their policies but they're addressing a complaint that would be made otherwise. It also denies the agency of minorities by requiring them to be monolithic entities wherein all members agree with whatever you think their opinions should be. Would you really be satisfied if the entire trump administration was white Christian males over the age of 40?
One of the criticisms of the pro-life side of the abortion debate has always been that men are over-represented in the US federal government yet they're able to regulate an issue in which they are not directly effected. I don't know if you agree with this specific criticism or not but a lot of people do and I don't think it's fair to then complain about "tokenism" when somebody like Amy Coney Barrett who is immune to this argument gets appointed.
Bad people aren't limited to one race or anything. But far end politicians love propping up a minority on TV because then they can have an excuse whenever they're compared to historically bad political movements.
You're the only one bringing up white Christian males here, which kind of proves my point. You seem to think that for some reason I care if a politician is white or Christian. Extremist Islamic parties love propping up Christian minorities on TV and saying they'll defend them (they won't). Right wing western parties really, really love propping up a Jewish party member because they can say "we're not Nazis!!! All Nazis hated Jews and we love them!!!" Because the average person really thinks nazism was really only about killing Jewish people, when the reality was they only got around to that after several years of other awful stuff.
The LDP is propping up their 100% foreign born, foreign citizenship politician so they can say "see? We can't be anti-foreigner because the lady controlling this is a foreigner." The optics are transparent and it's even what they're astroturfing their message on social media as. Japanese politics are all about image. They don't pick a foreigner who illegally held dual citizenship to head anti-foreigner policies by accident.
Not really. Her mother is Japanese and they moved back when she was one year old.
People have been worrying about "ecofascism" well then why aren't you concerned about an administration whose policy is measles outbreaks for the misinformed of their constituency? Whose health minister is a rich environmental lawyer who just so happens to be a huge fan of letting disease rip?
The answer is the business owners are their constituents. They cannot afford to piss them off. If they lose their support the wheels will fall off this farcical performance.
I grew up in Florida, and I remember the sugar plantation “raids” they used to stage. They were a complete dog and pony show. They would announce them in advance so the plantations could hide most of their undocumented workers. Then they would round up just enough people for the photo op to prove they were being “tough on immigration.”
This is the same thing but on a grander and more dangerous scale.
"That is outside the scope of this investigation." Nothing ever happened.
At Hormel, complaining about all sorts of strange diseases and health conditions, possibly from inhaling aerosolized pig brain all day long? Oh, look, another raid.
"Won't someone rid me of these meddlesome workers?"
Just a theory but it seems highly plausible in both these cases that the companies and ICE colluded... stage a big photo op, get rid of problematic undocumented workers and oh, hey, wouldn't you know, no plans to investigate the company?
This is also your friendly reminder that visa overstays are a misdemeanor, but for an employer, assisting or knowingly hiring undocumented workers is a felony. Tough on crime, indeed.
Is it (R) or (M) for MAGA.
I used to joke "Hello to the NSA analyst reading this!" when talking about "sensitive stuff" in private messages, but I guess that needs to be updated to "Hello to the LLM!"
Because immigration stuff isn't the primary purpose at this time. The primary purpose is to normalize a police state, to invoke feelings of fear in the general population and to build up a bigger infrastructure to do more authoritarian things.
"The purpose of a system is what it does", not what it claims to do. Today it looks like that purpose includes mass surveillance of social media.
Here's one that happened near me last month: https://cnycentral.com/news/local/breakdown-ice-detains-work... - and there are more happening in other places.
For the most part, they've been targeting visa overstays by those who have been charged with and/or convicted of other crimes in the US. Not significantly different than under Obama. It's only that the visibility has been turned up to 11 along with ramped up protests and state/city sanctioned resistance in some locations.
As to the ramp-up in scale.. that's what happens when you let 5x the amount of people legally allowed entry to come into a nation in a relatively short period of time illegally. over 90% of asylum claims are invalid and fraudulent... there is almost no legitimate reason for crossing into the country outside a recognized port of entry.
I say this as someone who feels that immigration should generally be tied to "do you have a source of income and a place to stay?" at its' core... combined with a multiple of minimum wage as an income baseline with hefty employer side taxes to go along with. Arguments against doing so are very similar in my mind to having slavery... it's not okay, not good for the nation. I have similar feelings that "free trade" should only occur when similar quality of life or safety measures are in place. I'm optimistically libertarian minded, but recognize reality.
Just because the grunts are dead serious doesn't mean the initiative is dead serious.
Even then, serious doesn't equal competent. They are still trying to deport Abrego Garcia. Spending millions in legal fees and transport to deport a single man is not pratical in the slightest.
Turns out cruelty is very expensive to maintain, though. And we certainly do not have the economy to keep accommodating the narrative as real citizens starve and lose jobs. Something's going to break.
But you're in denial if you really think certain driven individuals in all three branches of the us government aren't dead ass serious about taking this stuff to misanthropic ends.
But their message isn't directly saying "spend 1 trillion dollars to be bigoted"
Silver linings…
I've seen some conspiracy theories that RFK, Jr, et al, want to start labor camps for autistic kids and just about anyone else his bunch can get tagged as defective or deficient or whatever, but I don't think that's going to work out like someone hopes it will.
Turns out Americans don't want to move out to rural areas to be paid minimum wage to do hard farm labor. Who knew?
That's the only real upside to this gig economy. Their competition isn't just flipping burgers, but anyone who has a car that can sign up to an app to make some quick cash.
A Reuters poll on the White House demolitions had a 63% approval for one question and a 40% approval rating for another question - from Republican voters.
As long as there exists a content economy on the right that does’t have to pay their dues to reality, you will not stop a political machine which is based upon fantasy.
The only thing that will cut through the noise is a recession, because that cannot be spun. Even then - that would just be a speed bump; eventually the recession will pass.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20251008104110/https://prospect....
It has a chilling effect on what people say and do.
You'll notice the same effect in other states that have armed people who turn up unexpectedly to make people disappear.
I’ve seen more people realize this since his Trump started beefing with Massie, but they still glaze him so hard as to not offend, that it’s basically meaningless.
You can't solve the problem at the "just regulate the employers" level because it invariably turns into a tighter regulatory capture further enriching the incumbents. Any reform will necessarily increase the competitive advantage of the current winners because they are the ones in a position to shape it.
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