ICE's Summer Spending Spree

Summary

On the Media – "ICE's Summer Spending Spree"

Date: July 29, 2026
Host: Michael Olinger
Guest: Joseph Cox, Investigative Reporter and co-founder of 404 Media

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the surge of spending, surveillance, and data acquisition by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following “Operation Metro Surge” in early 2026. Host Michael Olinger interviews Joseph Cox to dissect how ICE leverages new technologies, purchases vast troves of personal data, and pushes legal boundaries—often out of the media spotlight—to ramp up enforcement and expand their mandate, including for voter fraud investigations. The conversation also highlights how these evolving practice impact privacy, civil rights, and public awareness.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Recap: Violence and ICE’s Ongoing Operations

• ICE’s “Operation Metro Surge” sent nearly 3,000 agents to Minnesota’s Twin Cities, leading to thousands of arrests and the deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of ICE agents ([00:45]–[01:26]).
• Recent fatal shootings in Houston, TX and Biddeford, ME, involving ICE, have sparked new protests and scrutiny, especially as neither victim was the intended target and no agents wore body cameras ([01:26]).

Quote:

"None of the agents involved were wearing body cameras and neither of the victims were the intended targets of the operation."
—Narrator ([01:26])

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2. ICE’s Expanding Data and Surveillance Shopping

• Over recent months, ICE has increased purchases of data and surveillance tech—such as smartphone location data, license plate info, and large amounts of personal data from brokers like Thomson Reuters ([02:22]).
• ICE recently allocated $125 million for new Thomson Reuters data contracts, now including goals beyond immigration—like investigating voter fraud ([02:22], [03:45]).

Quote:

"ICE continues to spend money on all sorts of data and surveillance technology... just recently, funnily enough, a day after President Trump went on an unhinged press conference about voter security and election fraud... ICE is going to pay Thomson Reuters another $125 million for a bunch of personal data to investigate not just immigration fraud, but what they describe as voters fraud."
—Joseph Cox ([02:22])

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3. Jurisdiction and the “Voter Fraud” Mandate

• Michael questions ICE’s jurisdiction in voter fraud cases. Cox explains Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)—a division typically focused on cybercrime or money laundering—now is being redirected to focus mainly on deportations, but “fraud” of any sort is easily lumped into its purview, a function expanded under political pressure ([03:33]-[04:42]).

Quote:

"Fraud, even if it's baseless, claims of voter fraud would probably technically fall under HSI's remit as well, because it has that fraud word in it."
—Joseph Cox ([03:45])

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4. CLEAR: Data Broker Products and Legal Loopholes

• Thomson Reuters’ CLEAR is detailed as a vast investigative database: combines public records with “credit header” information (names, addresses, emails, phone numbers from the top of credit reports).
• This data is aggregated and cross-linked; ICE can search it without a warrant ([04:57]–[06:16]).
• There are no federal privacy laws stopping this; past reforms under the Biden administration were killed at the start of Trump’s second term ([06:16]–[07:46]).

Quote:

"When ICE is obsessed with getting people's addresses... they can query it, they can search it, they can analyze it all without a warrant. Just because this is how privacy works in the United States."
—Joseph Cox ([06:16])

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5. Beyond the Credit Bureaus: Data from Everywhere

• ICE also buys smartphone location data, insurance claims (auto accidents, medical claims), and even attempts to obtain taxpayer information initially walled off by the IRS ([07:57]–[09:31]).
• Legal battles are ongoing, but Cox finds evidence of ICE trying to purchase taxpayer identification numbers (ITINs) through brokers when direct IRS data is blocked ([10:29]–[11:13]).

Quote:

"When ICE can't get a certain data set or type of information in one way, they might just try to purchase it another way or get it from another provider entirely."
—Joseph Cox ([10:29])

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6. The Scale and Permanency of ICE Data Purchases

• Unlike other federal law enforcement who buy on a per-case basis, ICE tries to buy data in bulk and quickly, sometimes paying multiple vendors for the same info just to get faster, broader access ([11:21]).

Quote:

"They're even prepared to pay basically twice for the same data if it means they can get it even quicker... We want it quicker and we want it in bulk."
—Joseph Cox ([11:21])

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7. Facial Recognition: 'Mobile Fortify'

• ICE’s in-house app, Mobile Fortify, allows agents to scan faces in the field and query multiple federal databases; since its launch, it’s been used over 200,000 times ([12:28]).
• ICE claims the app is more definitive than birth certificates—a proposition Cox finds “shocking.” Reliability questions remain, especially with misidentification risk for Black and brown individuals ([14:03]–[14:24]).

Quote:

"ICE told lawmakers that Mobile Fortify... provides a definitive determination of someone's immigration status and should be trusted over a birth certificate."
—Michael Olinger ([14:03])

"The idea that a piece of technology as faulty as facial recognition... can override somebody's birth certificate is still crazy."
—Joseph Cox ([14:24])

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8. Expansion to Local Law Enforcement: 'Mobile Identify'

• ICE and Customs and Border Protection are testing a simplified app for local police (Mobile Identify), connected with the 287(g) program giving local police some immigration powers ([15:04]).
• Though not widely deployed yet, this tech could soon allow police to scan faces and notify ICE on the spot.

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9. The Flock Safety Controversy

• Flock Safety’s automatic license-plate-reader (ALPR) cameras allow real-time tracking of vehicles. Flock claims a “no-ICE” policy, but Cox’s reporting exposed how ICE agents access data through local law enforcement, even for cases like abortion prosecutions ([16:25]–[16:55]).
• After exposés, some states (California, Illinois) pulled out of national networks, but significant privacy gaps remain.

Quote:

"That’s the key thing about Flock—when a police officer searches it either for their own agency or maybe for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they're not necessarily searching just cameras in their own town or city or state."
—Joseph Cox ([16:55])

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10. Media, Public Attention, and Future Risks

• Olinger and Cox discuss how press and public attention wanes between headline-making ICE surges. Cox stresses the importance of persistent journalism to track these developments and keep local communities informed ([18:42]–[20:10]).

Quote:

"I feel it’s really important to keep reporting on this and what is actually happening, even if it's not in a journalistic sense, like a scoop every single time… It's important to document what is happening so individual communities can decide what they want to do."
—Joseph Cox ([19:03])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This is like the Panopticon. They're just building it.”
  – Michael Olinger ([09:06])
• “When I showed that to Senator Ron Wyden, he gave me a statement and said, it sure looks like ICE is trying to buy the sort of data they technically weren’t allowed to get from the IRS.”
  – Joseph Cox ([10:29])
• The app disappeared from the Google Play store after Cox’s inquiries—a moment highlighting the lack of transparency around surveillance tools ([15:04]).

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Key Timestamps

• [01:26] – Fatal shootings and media/protest reaction
• [02:22], [03:45] – ICE’s new data contracts and voter fraud focus
• [04:57] – Thomson Reuters CLEAR database explanation
• [06:16] – Legal loopholes and lack of federal privacy protections
• [09:31] – IRS cooperation fallout and workaround purchases
• [11:21] – Unprecedented data buying in bulk
• [12:28] – Facial recognition app Mobile Fortify in action
• [14:03], [14:24] – Misplaced trust in tech over documents
• [15:04] – Expansion of tech to local police (Mobile Identify)
• [16:25] – Flock Safety, ALPRs, and ICE access via police agencies
• [18:42], [19:03] – Challenges for journalists and the public

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Episode Tone & Style

The discussion is measured, deeply factual, and focused on systemic analysis rather than hot-take outrage. Both host and guest maintain a level-headed, investigative tone—emphasizing the structural and legal shifts affecting privacy, transparency, and power, and urging sustained public and journalistic vigilance.

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This summary is designed for listeners who want a comprehensive understanding of ICE’s technological evolution, the widening of its enforcement purview, and the broader implications for privacy and civil liberties—even if they missed the episode itself.

Transcript

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[Michael Olinger]

to the on the Media midweek podcast. I'm Michael Olinger. At the start of 2026, U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was top of mind for many Americans, in large part due to what the agency called Operation Metro Surge. The order sent nearly 3,000 agents to the Twin Cities in Minnesota, resulting in thousands of arrests and two US Citizens shot dead by ICE agents. There were nationwide protests, congressional hearings and plenty of headlines, but as the weeks went on, ICE faded a bit from the spotlight. The agency was still arresting and deporting thousands and ICE shot even more people.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Two fatal shootings this month involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have reignited protests and renewed questions about tactics, training and recruitment at the agency. Two men were killed in these latest stops. In Houston, Texas it was 52 year old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, originally from Mexico. In Biddeford, Maine it was 26 year old Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, originally from Colombia. None of the agents involved were wearing body cameras and neither of the victims were the intended targets of the operation.

[Michael Olinger]

The violence and another uptick in arrests and have renewed scrutiny of the agency at the heart of Trump's anti immigration efforts. In January I spoke with Joseph Cox, investigative reporter and co founder of 404 Media to talk about the array of tactics and technology ICE was using and I decided to call him back to ask about the new tools and strategies it's added since then.

[Joseph Cox]

ICE continues to spend money on all sorts of data and surveillance technology. There is location data harvested from smartphones, there is access to licensing plate information. There is personal information that ICE is buying from Thomson Reuters and a bunch of other companies as well. Of course listeners will know Thomson Reuters for running the Reuters news agency. The company is also a massive data broker and they sell all sorts of private information to the government and to private clients. Just recently, funnily enough, a day after President Trump went on an unhinged press conference about voter security and election fraud. We reported that ICE is going to pay Thomson Reuters Another 100%, $125 million for a bunch of personal data to investigate not just immigration fraud, but what they describe as voters fraud. And if anything, and I'm kind of reading the tea leaves here, you go through these documents and you can see what the President is saying publicly about voter fraud, alleged voter fraud and election security. And it's then being reflected in the US procurement documents as well. They are absolutely echoing one another.

[Michael Olinger]

You may not know the answer to this, but ice, voter fraud, how does this body even have jurisdiction to be investigating these allegations?

[Joseph Cox]

How it fits into ICE's mandate is that technically the data is likely to end up, according to the records, with hsi, Homeland Security Investigations. This is a division of ICE that has traditionally being focused on cybercrime, money laundering, child abuse, imagery, like real, legitimate criminal investigations. But as we know from data that was published by the Cato Institute, something like 90% of HSI officials were actually redirected to ICE's main mission, which is finding people to deport. Obviously, that's not dried up, obviously, because there's still a lot of people being detained. But fraud, even if it's baseless, claims of voter fraud would probably technically fall under HSI's remit as well, because it has that fraud word in it. This is still like, early days. I am reading between the lines of these procurement records, but they say on black and white there, they want to use this data to investigate voter fraud.

[Michael Olinger]

Talk a little bit about Thomson Reuters product clear. This is not the same clear that travelers might encounter in some airports. Right? What exactly is this service? What is ICE getting out of this contract?

[Joseph Cox]

The Clear Investigative Database sold by Thomson Reuters collects all sorts of public and private data. And when I say a public, that can be like stuff from court records, it could be property information, corporate ownership, all of the sort of stuff that is technically public. But if you were to investigate an entity or a business, you'd have to go and dig around potentially a little bit to go do it. Then it has more private stuff, such as credit header information. Not to get too technical, but this is sort of the bit at the top of your credit report. So it's not how much credit you have or anything like that, but it's your name, it's your address, your email address, maybe a phone number, that sort of thing. And Thomson Reuters, in this clear product, isn't just about the data. It's that it's sort of a single dashboard to link all of these pieces of information together. So I can type in a name or a Social Security number or some sort of identifier, and I can then zoom in on that person.

[Michael Olinger]

Yeah, let's just linger on that for a second, because I think when most of us sign up for a credit card, say we're chasing rewards through our bank, we don't think or know that this personal information might find its way to ICE or some other law enforcement. I mean, how is that legal?

[Joseph Cox]

This is America. Like, I don't think you get away with this. In Europe, data collected by a company for one purpose is so often leveraged and sold and repurposed for another. And the credit header stuff has actually been going on for years and years and years. I've reported how bounty hunters are able to access that information. Private investigators as well, they use it literally all the time. Repo men as well. Now, when ICE is obsessed with getting people's addresses, I thought it was worth digging specifically into how ICE is getting that information, which most people, as you say, when they go and open a credit card with any bank or financial institution, I don't think people think it's even going to leave the bank. But it does leave the bank and it goes to the credit bureaus and then it leaves them, and then it ends up in the hands of a law enforcement agency. And specifically ice, who can query it, they can search it, they can analyze it all without a warrant. Just because this is how privacy works in the United States. There is no federal privacy law that would block this sort of thing. And the last thing I would just say on that is that towards the end of the Biden administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they were very explicitly investigating the sale and the transfer of credit header information. They were going to propose a new rule that would maybe not outright ban it, but put some limitations on it. The second Trump administration comes in, not only do they get rid of that rule, I mean, they essentially kill the entire agency.

[Narrator/Reporter]

And.

[Michael Olinger]

And so ICE is the beneficiary of there being no guardrails in this data broker industry. Where else are they getting this information?

[Joseph Cox]

I mean, a lot of other places. So the location data from your smartphone, that similarly has very few protections. I've also reported that ICE has been purchasing or somehow accessing insurance claims data as well, related to car accidents or to medical claims. And I could go on and on and on, and we would be here for a very, very long time, frankly. And I almost feel like I can't remember all of them off the top of my head. But the point is that they want to get every sort of information, essentially, that is gonna be beneficial to them for locating somebody, a person of interest, an entity of interest. And I think I feel comfortable saying that because I spoke to some people who attended a recent Border Security Expo, and there was a senior ICE official there, Matthew Ellison, I believe, and he was about how we're open for business, essentially, that if you have an interesting product or an interesting data set that you would like to sell to ICE or dhs, come talk to me. And the people who were at that conference told me that after this senior ICE official spoke, there was a very long line of people who wanted to talk to him.

[Michael Olinger]

Wow. I mean, this is like the Panopticon. They're just building it. And it's disturbing, too, that they are seeking information that had once been walled off to them. Right. They're attempting to use tax information that immigrants had given to federal agencies because they were led to believe it would not be used for this purpose.

[Joseph Cox]

Yeah. The idea was that if you're an undocumented person, you would still pay your taxes and provide that information to the IRS and obviously pay the money that you were required to do so. And in exchange, the IRS promised, well, we're not going to then use this for immigration enforcement. Now that firewall has been completely shattered. There is kind of a back and forth in the courts where IRS has provided some information to ice. They've used it. A judge says, you can't do that.

[Michael Olinger]

The original deal between the IRS and ICE made in early 2025 was that the IRS would give ICE taxpayer identification numbers and last known addresses for over 1 million people. U.S. district Judge Colleen Collar Cottley temporarily blocked the IRS from sharing data in November 2025. And Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. district Court for the District of Massachus ruled against data sharing in February of this year. And yet the battles keep going and going.

[Joseph Cox]

So there's all of that IRS stuff happening in the courts. In the meantime, I came across a very interesting $10 million purchase in the US government procurement records. And it said that ICE was trying to buy itins, and that is the tax identifier given to undocumented people. So when I showed that to Senator Ron Wyden, he gave me a statement and said, it sure looks like ICE is trying to buy the sort of data that they technically weren't allowed to get from the irs. And I do think that signifies something in that when ICE can't get a certain data set or type of information in one way. They might just try to purchase it another way or get it from another provider entirely.

[Michael Olinger]

Can you put into perspective the amount of information ICE and Customs and Border Patrol are buying right now?

[Joseph Cox]

A lot of law enforcement agencies like the FBI or the DEA or ATF or whoever, they usually will buy data from a provider like LexisNexis or Thomson Reuters, something like that, on a case by case basis. Obviously the difference with ice, at least from the contracting records, I've read that they're even prepared to pay basically twice for the same data if it means they can get it even quicker. So when I was going through this Thomson Reuters $125 million procurement record, they sort of hint at in the contract itself, we actually already get some of this data from another contractor that feeds this information through to us. We want it quicker and we want it in bulk. And we're going to pay for this again, even though this is going to cost ICE more money.

[Michael Olinger]

The last time we spoke we talked about some of these data purchases, but also how ICE was expanding its use of tech on the ground. You've written a a lot about an in house facial recognition app called Mobile Fortify. Is that still in use?

[Joseph Cox]

Mobile Fortify is absolutely still in use. So picture the sort of facial recognition system that you have to go through if you enter the United States and potentially exit the United States as well. This is run by Customs and border protection. What ICE's mobile Fortify app does is take that system which traditionally was housed at the border, and turns it inwards and puts it onto ICE officials mobile phones so they can then go up to somebody on the street, point their smartphone camera at them, scan their face and the app will then query, I think an unprecedented number of government databases, at least for an app being used inside the country. And that's DHS stuff, that's FBI databases, some other ones as well. And it will bring up the, the person's alleged name, date of birth, and most importantly for ice, whether they've been given a final order of deportation or not. We really saw it take off during Minneapolis and Minnesota. Right. So we saw it in action there. Then later on I was relayed these talking points from a senior ICE official at a border security expo. And he said that the app has been used something like 200,000 times in the field. And he claims that, you know, this app app does not make mistakes. I don't think he reads our website because we've reported this Technology is not foolproof. It can make mistakes. And it is being deployed en masse inside the United States, especially during these big surge operations that we've seen.

[Michael Olinger]

And as you wrote earlier this year, ICE told lawmakers that Mobile Fortify, quote, provides a definitive determination of someone's immigration status and should be trusted over a birth certificate. Of course, facial recognition technology is not 100% reliable. It's been known to misidentify people, especially black and brown people.

[Joseph Cox]

Yeah, that birth certificate line is still shocking to me, even though I was the one that reported it. The idea that a piece of technology as faulty as facial recognition or even just an app in general can override somebody's birth certificate is still crazy.

[Michael Olinger]

According to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, a 56 year old ice watcher in Minnesota was approached by an ICE officer who the woman says already knew her name because he had used facial recognition technology. And now a similar app is being offered to local police. This is something you've reported on as well.

[Joseph Cox]

ICE and Customs and Border Protection. There are some moving parts here, but they plan to offer a sort of stripped down equivalent of Mobile fortify to local police departments called Mobile Identify. I found this on the Google Play store. I contacted Google for comment. I contacted ICE for comment. The app then disappeared for some reason, which is still not entirely clear to me. But I did obtain an internal DHS document where they laid out, we want to give this to law enforcement agencies that are part of the 287 program. And for those who aren't familiar, this allows local and state law enforcement agencies who, they're not part of ice, they're not part of dhs, they are local cops, but it gives them certain immigration related enforcement powers. They can detain somebody in the process of a traffic stop if they suspect they are an undocumented person. And the idea is that this app will help them do that. They will again scan somebody's face and it would tell them, hey, contact ICE about this person. Here's your confirmation code, provide that to ICE and then somebody will come assist you. ICE not only wants to streamline the immigration detention process with technology, but also by essentially outsourcing it to 287 agencies as well. I don't think that's fully taken off yet, but I can imagine it being sort of a next phase in immigration enforcement.

[Michael Olinger]

Across social media, I've seen a real awakening around Flock Safety. This is the tech company that installs cameras around small towns and cities which allow local police to track cars through Flock's Automatic license plate readers. On its website, Flock says it doesn't work with ICE, but last year, 404 reported that ICE agents were getting access to Flock's data with help from local law enforcement. How much is that still going on?

[Joseph Cox]

Yeah, so we reported that in May 2025, and that triggered like a national conversation about Flock, which is still ongoing. And there are other components of it. We also found that a woman who self administered an abortion was tracked via Flock. Including what? Yeah, including a Texas police official. Search cameras all over the country for this person. That's the key thing about Flock is that when a police officer searches it either for their own agency or maybe for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they are not necessarily searching just cameras in their own town or city or or state. And this is obviously of great concern when it comes to immigration because certain states are going to have a different stance on immigration and undocumented people than other states as well. So we report that in May 2025, it starts this national conversation. There are a bunch of changes like Flock introduces new guardrails inside its products. Californian agencies remove themselves from the national network so they can't be searched by officials in other states. And I think it happens in Illinois as well. There are still pockets of it happening, though. Querying this data set doesn't require a warrant. There's no like, hey, here is our case, here's our probable cause. You're a judge, please sign it. Now we'll search the Flock system. You log in with a username and password and maybe a two factor authentication token, and then you can search whatever you want. And that's because technically, these are cameras in public places taking images mostly of public spaces. So under sort of the American understanding of privacy, and in a legal sense, you do not need a warrant to query or obtain that information. That is being challenged by some civil rights groups. But that is why there is so much room for abuse with this technology.

[Michael Olinger]

It did seem like the intensity of the backlash against ICE earlier this year started to abate, at least until the two fatal shootings this month. How do we as reporters and news consumers keep this stuff front of mind and not just let it fade into the background?

[Joseph Cox]

Again, it's a really, really hard problem. There are issues of the attention economy, people's own appetite for this sort of thing, their fatigue when it comes to this. I think based on the pattern that we've seen from ICE and dhs, this is sort of the norm now. I don't think there's going to be a constant baseline of activity, at least visibly. We're going to have these surges. And I am concerned that both readers and listeners and viewers on one side and journalists will frankly get tired of it and just feel like, oh, this is normal now. I feel it's really important to keep reporting on this and what is actually happening, even if it's not in a journalistic sense, like a scoop every single time. It's just like it's important to document what is happening so individual communities can decide what they want to do, whether it comes to flock cameras or ICE raids or the data broker economy or whatever. It happened to Minneapolis, you know, in six months it's gonna happen somewhere else. And those people deserve coverage just as much as Minnesota did. Of course.

[Michael Olinger]

Joseph, thank you for doing this work. Thanks for coming on the show.

[Joseph Cox]

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

[Michael Olinger]

Joseph Cox is an investigative reporter and co founder at 404 Media. Thanks for listening to the midweek podcast. Don't forget to listen to the big show this weekend. But in the meantime, you should check us out on Instagram, TikTok and Reddit. Just search on the media. I'm Michael Oinger.