ICE enlists Palantir to develop all-seeing 'ImmigrationOS' eye to speed up deportations
- Reference: 1745261592
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/04/21/ice_enlists_palantir_to_develop/
- Source link:
News of the [1]$29.9 million [2]deal came last week in a contract justification [3]letter [PDF] from ICE. The letter argued that the deal had to be awarded quickly, with no opportunity for competing bids, because the immigration agency wants a prototype ready by September 25 - a rapid turnaround.
Palantir is the only vendor that can deliver on that timeline, the letter argued. It is expected to merge together various data sources to provide an easy interface for selecting foreigners to remove from the country, among other things.
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"Palantir's systems are already ingesting and processing data from multiple ICE, DHS [Dept of Homeland Security] and external sources," ICE said in its filing. "Palantir is the only source that can provide the required capabilities and prototype … without causing unacceptable delays."
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The new system, ICE Immigration Lifecycle Operating System, or ImmigrationOS, is being built to give the agency two particular capabilities that it said current software systems lack.
First, ImmigrationOS will help with "targeting and enforcement prioritization" by "streamlining selection and apprehension operations" based on ICE priorities, such as apprehending suspected or proven members of criminal gangs, violent offenders, and folks who [7]overstay their visas.
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ImmigrationOS is also supposed to provide "real-time visibility into instances of self-deportation" - that is, immigrants who leave before they're kicked out - and end-to-end immigration lifecycle tracking, which seems from ICE's description to be less about tracking legal immigrants working through the system and more about the "immigration lifecycle from identification to removal." That, the acquisition paperwork points out, will help ICE make deportations more efficient, "minimizing time and resource expenditure."
Palantir, which is named after the all-seeing crystal balls in the Lord of the Rings, has provided support for Immigration enforcers for more than a decade, the letter notes, and its thorough integration into ICE systems means the six-month deadline for ImmigrationOS to reach the prototype phase should be a snap for the firm.
The Colorado-based biz was [9]co-founded in 2003 by Peter Thiel, a Republican mega-donor who [10]bankrolled the political rise of JD Vance, his protégé and now US Vice President.
[11]Palantir designed to 'power the West to its obvious innate superiority,' says CEO
[12]How ICE became a $2.8b domestic surveillance agency
[13]Palantir's CEO calls 'woke' a 'central risk to Palantir, America and the world'
[14]Palantir bags $480M from Pentagon to inject battlefield AI into the entire military
The ImmigrationOS contract puts Palantir front-and-center in the drama over Trump's [15]grab-first-ask-questions-later-maybe immigration policy, and sparked some catty back-and-forth between frequent tech pontificator Paul Graham, who co-founded startup factory Y Combinator, and the folks at Palantir.
Graham [16]quipped on X, "there are a huge number of other places you can go work rather than at the company building the infrastructure of the police state."
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In response, Palantir's head of commercial technologies, Ted Mabrey, wrote a [18]long response comparing Graham's stance to the way Google acted in 2018 when it walked away from the Pentagon's [19]Project Maven after some employees expressed outrage at helping the military use AI to target people more effectively. If you join Palantir, Mabrey wrote, "you should expect to weather attacks like this all the time; from all sides of the political aisle." He added, "The only way to counter these bullies is not to argue but to build."
The Trump administration has run into a firestorm of criticism over the deportation of [20]Kilmar Abrego Garcia , whom Trump has refused to return to America despite orders from the US Supreme Court. The regime has also been criticized for detaining and intending to deport a number of foreign pro-Palestinian students studying in the US legally who [21]spoke out about the Israel-Hamas war.
We've reached out to both ICE and Palantir to learn whether ImmigrationOS would include built-in protections to prevent the apprehension of legal law-abiding immigrants, and haven't heard back. ®
Get our [22]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/fpdsportal?q=PIID:%2270CTD022FR0000170%22&s=FPDS.GOV&templateName=1.5.3&indexName=awardfull&x=0&y=0&sortBy=SIGNED_DATE&desc=Y
[2] https://sam.gov/opp/f71acee6010c423db4902446a59a690c/view
[3] https://sam.gov/api/prod/opps/v3/opportunities/resources/files/bbc609e240cd4f28869f07b6c76d1ddf/download?&token=
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aAbAChBEf4flnwbBBuhFmQAAAtc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aAbAChBEf4flnwbBBuhFmQAAAtc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aAbAChBEf4flnwbBBuhFmQAAAtc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/26/elon-musk-immigration-status/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aAbAChBEf4flnwbBBuhFmQAAAtc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/04/palantir_karp_comments/
[10] https://www.salon.com/2024/07/22/jd-vance-owes-almost-everything-to-peter-thiel-a-pro-billionaire-and-new-right-ideologue/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/04/palantir_karp_comments/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/14/ice_28bn_domestic_surveillance/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/07/palantirs_forecasts_disappoint_the_market/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/30/palantir_us_army/
[15] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/a-u-s-citizen-was-held-for-pickup-by-ice-despite-proof-he-was-born-in-the-country
[16] https://x.com/paulg/status/1913338841068404903
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aAbAChBEf4flnwbBBuhFmQAAAtc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://x.com/MabreyTed/status/1913703425495470304
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/us_military_maven_ai_used/
[20] https://www.npr.org/2025/04/20/g-s1-61475/trump-faces-bipartisan-criticism-over-abrego-garcia-deportation
[21] https://apnews.com/article/immigration-detainees-students-ozturk-khalil-78f544fb2c8b593c88a0c1f0e0ad9c5f
[22] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Operating Sytems and the Gullible
Now I get the idea why the newly elected German chancellor was phantasizing about an "operating system" that would allow the police to basically stop crime once and forever, keep terrorists out of the country, pick cats from trees and guarantee sunny wheather every day after they closed an expensive deal with Palantir. I was quite amazed to hear the term "operating system" out of the mout of someone unable to tell the difference between an OS, open source and an operation amplifier in suspiciouis context. Guess I know who put that flea in his ear...
Re: Operating Sytems and the Gullible
It can do all these things... if it uses A1!
a society ruled by technology
Much of the information being used is the stolen information from the hacked US Government agencies. They will use this database to power the crime lords AI police state. We've reached the point in the story where the people are unknowingly, and without a thought, using their own stolen money and identity to build the AI police state that will be their own destruction.
Re: a society ruled by technology
Imagine all those social media posts going back to ~2015 (when Dump first started running) that were critical of Dump.
Join that to these DHS etc databases and you can expanded the hate to not only illegals but people that will now be considered "dissidents/terrorists" (like those students that took part in peaceful protests on private [university] property) and as I noted below, they will get hoovered up.
Make everyone fear the "machine" and you control thought which is part of the goals of a Fascist state.
I note that they want to force the states to us federal mandated voting machines.... I wonder if these will have a backdoor to flip votes as needed? (or report who didnt vote the right way?)
Bluck
Hearing back from ICE
We've reached out to both ICE and Palantir to learn whether ImmigrationOS would include built-in protections to prevent the apprehension of legal law-abiding immigrants, and haven't heard back .
Don't worry, you will, that'll be them, knocking on your door sometime after midnight.
Re: Hearing back from ICE
Quote
"Don't worry, you will, that'll be them, knocking on your door sometime after midnight."
Ahh the good old Nacht und Nebel tactic.
I'd put a joke icon..... but its not really
They have a massive logistical issue
So lets say this $30m sausage machine manages to find 1+ million people to deport... and of course we know it will hoover up innocent people and hard working/law abiding/tax paying illegals that would make much better citizens than any MAGA voter.
The issue this iteration of Nazi's have is:
1- they don't have anywhere to house them on US soil for temporary staging (and Gitmo isn't an option)
2- they don't have anywhere to send them (given many countries wont accept them)
3- they cant instantly build prisons in El Salvador to house 100,000's of them
4- they can't fly enough planes to meet the supposed target of 1 million per year
5- they can't ultimately afford to do any of the above (El Salvador is billing Uncle Sam $6mil for 300 prison cells)
Now what I state is purely an unemotional/logistical response to this grifting deal to the arsehole named Peter Thiel and doesn't represent my personal views/distaste/revulsion of that pack of inhumane wankers that is contained in the shit show of this current US administration.
Bluck
Re: They have a massive logistical issue
I think the well publicized terrible things they're doing like snatching people off the streets and using tattoos to determine if people in a gang that they believe allows them to remove people to a country they have no connection to in a third world hellhole is their solution to that problem.
Be terrible, scary and cruel enough that most non-citizens choose to leave because they're afraid of what might happen if they stay. Nevermind that it will (and already is) making major hits to tourism in the US. That will be proclaimed to be Biden's fault, no doubt!
Re: They have a massive logistical issue
Agree... it's racial purification wrapped up in a bogus "national security" flag
The "interesting" thing about this US administration is they are a potpourri of different ideologies that have coalesced together to pursue their non-overlapping end goals.
The common binding theme of course is hate...although I would put this tariffs shit in a special category... it's just one crazy fuckwits idea of how to run an economy (the fact it might also hurt non-white's/liberials/shit hole countries is viewed as an advantageous byproduct)
Bluck
Re: They have a massive logistical issue
My internal autocorrect just read that as "a potpourri of different ideologies that have coalesced together to pursue their non-overlapping own goals".
Re: They have a massive logistical issue
well...they seem to be winning at the moment
I hope that the spirit/courage of MLK still lives in enough peoples hearts in the US and that they find a way to force change/throw out these bums.
There certainly appears to be no courage in Congress and the [un]Supreme Court.
Bluck
The one "advantage" to all of this is...
By the US (supposedly a Western Democracy) going down this fascist path, it provides a blueprint to other Western Democracies that you can't let the right wing nut jobs gain any level of traction.
This was seen recently in Canada where the Trump lite Conservative Party of Canada have tanked in the polls.
I hope this plays out in the EU.
On the negative side, it will give great heart to RWNJ's in other countries but obviously we know why it worked in the US... the RWNJ's took over an existing major party...much harder for a small RWNJ party to ascend to a get elected (esp. in countries where the electoral system has real checks and balances)
Bluck
Of course DOG-E won't have anything to say....
.... if a contract is assigned without following any cost-saving procedure , as long as it is assigned to a long-time pay-pal....