The Courts Are Stopping ICE's Prisons. Its Surveillance System Is Another Story.

In February, a federal judge in Boston did something rare: she blocked ICE from accessing IRS taxpayer data for immigration enforcement. Judge Indira Talwani found the agency was "data-mining files" rather than following criminal investigation procedures, and ruled the sharing unlawful. It was the digital surveillance track's biggest legal victory to date. It was also a partial one. The injunction stopped future data transfers cold — but the 47,000 taxpayer records ICE had already received sat beyond its reach. The faucet was off; the bathtub stayed full. ^[1] That ruling, in miniature, is the whole story of legal resistance to ICE's interior enforcement. The administration's buildout runs on two tracks — physical detention and digital surveillance — and the courts are winning against only one. On the physical side, the wins have teeth. In May, Judge Beryl Howell upheld a ban on warrantless ICE arrests in Washington, D.C., rejecting the agency's claim that officers could deem anyone an "escape risk" without assessing their actual community ties.

when conducting civil immigration arrests without a warrant in this District, defendants shall not rely on the probable cause standard or analytical approach set forth in the five-page memorandum — Beryl Howell

The ruling extended an injunction first imposed in December 2025. ^[2] States are moving too: Michigan, Maine, and Montana have proposed legislation barring agents from sensitive locations without judicial warrants and prohibiting mask-wearing during enforcement operations. ^[3] And in July, Citizens Financial Group cut credit lines to GEO Group and CoreCivic, the two largest private prison operators, after activists withdrew $350 million — a financial pressure point that an injunction cannot create but a bank can. ^[4] These are constraints with real force. A prison can be divested from. An arrest can be enjoined. A state can make its own courthouses off-limits. The digital track tells a different story. ICE has tripled its use of ankle monitors to 54,000 people under the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, and a June 2025 internal memo directed agents to shift participants away from cheaper alternatives like the SmartLink facial-recognition app toward the more expensive GPS ankle monitor — the product manufactured by BI Incorporated, a subsidiary of GEO Group. ^[5]

If this trend continues, the technology and case management mix shift will continue to increase revenues and earnings generated under the ISAP contract even if overall participation counts remain relatively stable. — George Zoley

DHS has proposed collecting fingerprints, palm prints, facial and iris scans, voice prints, and DNA from all immigration applicants, eliminating age exemptions, at an annual cost of $288.7 million. ^[6] And ICE has deployed private contractors Amivero and Guidehouse to build dossiers on social media critics, with DHS issuing hundreds of subpoenas to unmask anonymous users — surveillance spending rose 57% to $258 million in Trump's first full year back. ^[7] Against this, the counterweights are thin. The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, which would block ICE from buying geolocation and phone records from data brokers without warrants, passed the House and stalled in the Senate. ^[8] A class-action lawsuit filed by the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights challenges the ankle-monitor expansion as a de facto "ankle monitors for all" policy imposed without individualized justification. ^[5] And in June, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that individuals retain a legitimate expectation of privacy in cellphone location data, with Justice Kagan writing that using location services does not forfeit Fourth Amendment protections.

A cellphone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties—which then can be freely passed on to the government—just by doing the ordinary things cellphone users do. — Elena Kagan

The ruling requires law enforcement to obtain full search warrants for geofence and historical location data. ^[9] But it has not yet been applied to ICE's specific practices — ankle monitors imposed as conditions of release, biometrics collected as part of applications, data bought rather than warranted. A legal framework exists in embryo. It has not arrived. That is the asymmetry. And one company profits from both sides of it. GEO Group operates 23 ICE detention facilities and holds over $1 billion in federal contracts. In July alone, it signed a $528.6 million deal for a Colorado facility with 1,188 beds and an $80-million-per-year contract for a North Carolina site with 1,320 beds. ^[10][11] Its subsidiary BI Incorporated runs the ankle-monitor program — the same June 2025 memo that pushed agents toward GPS monitors also pushed revenue toward GEO. CEO George Zoley made the company's view explicit.

We are proud of our 40-year public-private partnership with ICE, and we stand ready to continue to assist the federal government in meeting its immigration enforcement priorities. — The GEO Group

In May, the administration closed the loop: Trump appointed former GEO Group executive David Venturella as acting ICE director. Venturella spent over a decade at the company. The agency says he has divested and will not review GEO contracts. ^[12] Both tracks are expanding simultaneously — 54,000 people on ankle monitors and a record 65,000-plus in detention, housed in 16 prisons reopened since January 2025. ^[13][5] The two tracks target different populations — detention for those in custody, surveillance for those released pending proceedings — but the same contractor monetizes both, and the same legal system treats them differently. The difference is not just in the volume of legal resistance but in what each track's infrastructure can survive. A prison can be closed by a future administration, divested from by a bank, or blocked by an injunction before it opens. The digital track's infrastructure — the databases, the monitoring contracts, the dossiers — is harder to reach. The 47,000 IRS records are the proof: the law could stop more from coming, but it could not claw back what was already taken. The 54,000 ankle-monitor contracts are already signed and performing. Once built, these systems sit in servers and contract schedules that outlast the political moment that created them.