AIS Statement: Congress Must Curtail ICE’s Vast Surveillance Program to Protect Immigrant Survivors

May 2022 - The Alliance for Immigrant Survivors (AIS) condemns the vast, and often warrantless, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surveillance program, as revealed in American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century by the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law (May 10, 2022).

The following is a statement by Archi Pyati, AIS Co-Chair and CEO at Tahirih Justice Center:

“Many immigrant survivors of gender-based violence live with the daily fear of monitoring and stalking from abusers. Now they must live with the reality that ICE may also be tracking their every move.

“Such extensive and unchecked surveillance erodes immigrant survivor privacy. It also renders the ‘sensitive locations’ and ‘protected areas’ policies practically hollow as ICE has been granted access to information that enables the agency to monitor almost all movements an immigrant survivor may make including to and from a doctor's office for medical care, their children’s school, food banks and emergency shelter, or their places of worship.

“Congress must do more to protect immigrant data held within federal government programs including the VAWA, U and T victim visa programs, immediately implement effective oversight of ICE surveillance, hold ICE accountable for evading statutory and constitutional privacy protections, and stop ICE’s use of DMV data for immigration enforcement purposes.

“Something as simple and necessary as obtaining a driver’s license or paying a water bill should not be another thing immigrant survivors of gender-based violence have to fear.”

Media Contact: Charlie McAteer, AIS Communications, 917-696-1321, charlie@frontflipchange.com