According to a leaker in contact with 404 Media, Peter Thiel's spooky private intelligence company, Palantir Technologies, has taken on a significant role in assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with locating individuals destined for deportation. Given recent whimsical comments by President Trump, such deportation targets could include American citizens—'accidental' or otherwise.
From 404 Media (free membership required):
The leak shows that Palantir's work with ICE includes producing leads for law enforcement to find people to deport and keeping track of the logistics of Trump's mass deportation effort, and provides concrete insight into the Trump administration's wish to leverage data to enforce its immigration agenda. The internal communications also show Palantir leadership preparing for a potential backlash from employees or outsiders, with them writing FAQs that can be sent to friends or family that start to ask about Palantir's work with ICE.
… Palantir's role also includes a "self-deportation tracking" project, which is designed to help ICE develop a more accurate understanding of people who voluntarily leave the United States, and another project concerning "immigration lifecycle operations" which will support the logistics of deportation, such as overlaying information about detained or removed individuals and the availability of transportation resources, according to the wiki.
So, with Planatir's help, ICE won't just be breaking windows and breaking up families. They'll be snapping the privacy of American citizens over their knee like a broomstick, too. The depth and breadth of the Trump deportation agenda has yet to be fully understood: he can only order so much terrible shit to be done, so fast. At least while his administration probes how much bullshit the American people are willing to endure. But so far, it's pretty ugly.
Over 200 individuals (that we know of) have been deported so far. The bulk of those are currently being held in a notorious El Salvadoran prison. None of the individuals hoodwinked received anything close to due process before being shipped outside of American borders. 75% of the 200 being held in El Salvador have no criminal record. Hundreds of students, to date, have had their visas to study in the United States revoked. The reason for this, in many cases, is stated as the students being antisemitic or supporters of Hamas. In reality, the majority of those who have lost their visas were protesting the treatment of Palestinians by Israel during the current conflict in Gaza.
And then there's the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia: a man who fled El Salvador in fear for his life. The American Government promised to protect him, so that he'd never have to worry about being returned to his home nation.
Guess where he is right now.
According to mouthpieces for the current administration, Garcia was deported due to an administrative error. They're covering their asses, saying that Garcia was a MS-13 gang member… with absolutely no evidence to support their statement. Making ICE better at finding people without making sure that they're only deporting people who should be kept outside of U.S. borders. What could possibly go wrong?
