Palantir Deploys ICE ‘Dossier’ Mapper—$158M Tool Flags Deportation Targets Across US With Medicaid Data

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are using a Palantir Technologies application that functions “basically like Google Maps” to identify deportation targets, generate confidence scores on addresses, and draw polygons around entire neighborhoods for mass arrests.

The Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) system, revealed January 14, 2026 by 404 Media, marks the most sophisticated immigration surveillance technology deployed in U.S. history.

How the System Works

ELITE populates interactive digital maps with potential deportation targets, displaying comprehensive dossiers on each person.

The platform assigns “confidence scores” ranging from 0 to 100 indicating the likelihood someone resides at a specific address. Internal user guides show examples like 98.95 and 77.25 scores. Agents can click on individuals or use drawing tools to outline geographic areas, identifying all targets within selected boundaries simultaneously for coordinated enforcement operations.

Data Sources Fuel Surveillance Machine

The system integrates information from multiple federal agencies including Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid records, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services databases, and commercial data brokers like Thomson Reuters CLEAR platform.

This creates a comprehensive intelligence picture combining government records with utility bills, property ownership, vehicle registrations, and consumer data. Skip tracers and bounty hunters conduct physical surveillance, photographing residences and verifying addresses to enhance algorithmic predictions with on-the-ground intelligence.

Senator Condemns “Indiscriminate” Enforcement

“The fact ICE is using this app proves the completely indiscriminate nature of the agency’s aggressive and violent incursions into our communities,” Senator Ron Wyden stated following the disclosure. The Oregon Democrat added that ELITE allows ICE to “find the closest person to arrest and disappear, using government and commercial data.”

Wyden characterized the tool as evidence that “agents are reportedly picking people to deport from our country the same way you’d choose a nearby coffee shop.”

Record Detention Numbers Under Trump

ICE detention reached 73,000 individuals in mid-January 2026—an 84 percent increase from the previous year and the highest level in the agency’s 23-year history. The Trump administration aims to detain 100,000 people simultaneously as part of what officials describe as a “deportation crackdown of unprecedented proportions.”

Data reveals 73.7 percent of detainees have no criminal conviction, contradicting stated priorities to remove violent criminals and indicating technology enables indiscriminate mass enforcement.

Sworn Testimony Reveals Neighborhood Targeting

An ICE Fugitive Operations agent testified under oath in Oregon that officers use ELITE to identify “target-rich” neighborhoods rather than pursuing individual leads.

“You’re more likely to go to an area with a higher population density rather than a location with a single pin where the chances of the individual actually residing there are only about 10 percent,” the agent explained. This enables dragnet operations apprehending multiple individuals during single enforcement actions based on geographic concentration.

Woodburn Raids Draw Legal Challenges

In Woodburn, Oregon, where 63 percent of residents are Latino, ICE arrested over 30 farmworkers during operations guided by ELITE mapping. Federal judges ordered the release of five individuals after determining ICE lacked legal authority to detain them.

Immigration attorneys reported systematic denial of access to arrestees, violating due process protections. Oregon’s congressional delegation expressed concern that “ICE has been increasingly using dragnet practices to detain groups of people with little attention to citizenship.”

Palantir’s Lucrative Government Contracts

Palantir has earned over $200 million from ICE since 2011, building upon platforms like Investigative Case Management and FALCON that the company has provided for over a decade. Federal contracts with Palantir surged from $204 million in 2020 to $970.5 million in 2025.

The $29.9 million ELITE contract extends the broader ImmigrationOS platform designed to provide “near real-time visibility” into immigrant movements and streamline apprehension operations.

Stock Soars on Surveillance Expansion

Palantir’s stock surged 159 percent over the past year, closing at $177.07, giving the company a market capitalization exceeding $400 billion despite concerns about extreme valuation. At 105 times revenue, Palantir represents one of the priciest software stocks in history.

Government contracts now account for 55 percent of the company’s $2.9 billion annual revenue. The U.S. Army awarded Palantir a $10 billion contract in August 2025, the largest in company history.

Commercial Data Brokers Enable Mass Deportation

Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis hold over $50 million in ICE contracts to provide “mission critical” investigative resources.

These platforms compile data from over 80 utility companies representing 400 million customer profiles, along with driver’s licenses, property ownership, and phone records. Privacy advocates argue this creates a “data broker to deportation pipeline” that circumvents Fourth Amendment warrant requirements by purchasing data rather than obtaining judicial approval for surveillance.

Bounty Hunters Join Enforcement Network

ICE is building a parallel infrastructure of physical surveillance through skip tracing contracts potentially worth $281.25 million per vendor. Private investigators receive batches of 50,000 addresses from a database of 1.5 million individuals.

Skip tracers must provide time-stamped photographs and conduct enhanced location research to physically verify presence at home or work locations. This performance-based framework creates financial incentives resembling bounty hunting, with payment per case plus speed bonuses.

Privacy Groups Launch Legal Counteroffensive

The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that Palantir “enables governments to link data that should have never been linked,” breaking civil liberties firewalls between IRS data, immigration records, and social media information. The ACLU filed lawsuits in Minnesota and other states challenging warrantless arrests and racial profiling.

Amnesty International concluded there is “high risk that Palantir is contributing to serious human rights violations of migrants and asylum-seekers” through surveillance systems enabling constant mass monitoring.

Communities Mobilize Counter-Surveillance Networks

Residents in Woodburn formed volunteer teams notifying community members when ICE agents arrive, often responding with cameras to document activities. In January 2026, protesters surrounded two ICE agents who locked their key fob in their vehicle, preventing assistance until agents smashed their window to retrieve it.

Student journalists at Chicago universities created real-time mapping systems tracking ICE sightings through verified photographs and eyewitness accounts, building grassroots early warning systems.

Congressional Democrats Demand Accountability

Senator Wyden, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and eight other Democrats wrote to Palantir demanding information about federal contracts and warning that “Congress will fully investigate and hold accountable Trump Administration officials that violate Americans’ rights, as well as contractors like Palantir that profit from and enable those abuses.”

Palantir CEO Alex Karp defended the company’s ICE work, stating that finding undocumented people is “a legitimate, complex issue” and “a de minimis part of our work.”

Algorithmic Deportation Raises Constitutional Questions

Legal scholars identify multiple constitutional violations, including Fourth Amendment circumvention through commercial data purchases, Privacy Act transparency failures, and medical privacy breaches through Medicaid data sharing.

Research on predictive policing demonstrates algorithmic systems perpetuate historical bias, creating feedback loops where suspicion justifies surveillance that generates more data reinforcing suspicion. The opacity of confidence score calculations prevents independent audits of accuracy, bias, or whether systems violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.