ICE to Pay LexisNexis Millions for Data to Feed to Palantir
404 Media Joseph Cox
ICE wants to spend $6.7 million more on LexisNexis data for Palantir tools. The files show a bigger push to fuse huge records, AI, and face matching for deportation work.
Based on reporting by 404 Media, Joseph Cox — read the original for the full story.
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ICE is planning to pay LexisNexis millions more to keep feeding data into a Palantir system, according to newly published procurement records. The records say the data will support Enforcement and Removal Operations, the ICE arm that handles deportations.
The paperwork gives a clearer look at what ICE wants these systems to do. One document says the data will support “all aspects of ICE screening and vetting, lead development, and criminal analysis activities.” It also says ICE wants help spotting fraud before it happens, along with detecting and reporting signs of crimes tied to immigration and customs laws.
The price tag in the records is $6.7 million. And ICE is not buying something entirely new here. The agency has long used LexisNexis data, and this procurement appears to continue access to LexID and Accurint Virtual Crime Center, both tools that tie together massive amounts of public and proprietary records from thousands of sources.
What ICE seems to want now is tighter plumbing between that data and Palantir’s systems. The document says the database must be able to API with ICE applications including Palantir, PenLink, and ICE Data Analytics. That matters because 404 Media previously reported that Palantir’s ELITE system helps ICE identify which neighborhoods to target and shows officials a confidence score for a person’s current address.
The same records also spell out AI and facial recognition requirements. ICE wants an AI-driven identification system that can infer the identity of the end user, plus a facial recognition system that can do high-accuracy matching across large image databases, including open-source media, and do it in bulk. ICE said in July that it arrested more than 51,000 people, many at airports. LexisNexis, Palantir, and ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is what surveillance-state software looks like when it gets a procurement form and a budget line. The clever part isn’t the AI; it’s how many separate data hoses now get bolted together so deportation becomes a data fusion exercise. Very efficient. Very grim.
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