‘We should be worried’: report sheds light on ICE’s booming arsenal of hi-tech surveillance tools

What happened

According to The Guardian’s source item, ‘We should be worried’: report sheds light on ICE’s booming arsenal of hi-tech surveillance tools, Spending on government contracts with tech firms that use AI-powered tools to track immigrants has soared to record levels under Trump 2.0, report says A new report sheds light on the unprecedented growth of the US government’s immigration surveillance arsenal, revealing fresh details about how spending on technology and AI tools to find and track migrants has soared to record levels during Donald Trump’s second term. The report, released this week, analyzed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) contracts with 11 companies the authors said provide surveillance tech. They found the money awarded to these firms doubled from 2024 to 2025, to just over $310m – and in 2026, that number soared to a record $513m. Continue reading…

Context

The development sits in VINI’s Technology file for readers following technology, science, product policy, markets, infrastructure, and the public consequences of innovation. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The source item is dated 2026-06-24T20:07:46+00:00.

What to watch

Open questions include whether primary sources issue follow-up statements, whether local or market impacts become clearer, and whether additional reporting changes the timeline or adds material context.

Source

Primary source: ‘We should be worried’: report sheds light on ICE’s booming arsenal of hi-tech surveillance tools via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.