We extend a special thanks to our external reviewer: Kade Crockford, Technology for Liberty Program Director, ACLU of Massachusetts.
Executive Summary
· Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) fusion centers spend over $400 million each year to expand federal, state, and local intelligence sharing, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”).[1]
· Fusion centers enable ICE to coopt local police databases and surveillance tools (like facial recognition) that otherwise couldn’t be used for deportation purposes.
· Fusion center participants routinely give ICE sensitive data, violating state and local protections for undocumented immigrants.
· Local police officers use fusion centers to encourage ICE to target suspects when officers can’t find enough evidence to bring charges, effectively deporting their cold cases.
· Fusion centers’ opacity allows them to routinely violate state and local civil rights laws without consequence.
I. Introduction
Will you please run [license plate]. I am only able to pull from commercial databases for now.
ICE employee, March 7, 2018
I attached the LPR report.. 1 LE [law enforcement] scan that i could find..
hope you are well..
Orange County Intelligence Assessment Center police officer, March 7, 2018[2]
Subject: Immigration Question
I am looking for a photo of the following subject.
Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles employee, February 19, 2019
Unfortunately the pic is from his last time with us in 2012; I reached out to the Indiana Fusion Center, requesting a… photo.
Good hunting!
Colorado Information Analysis Center ICE agent, February 19, 2019[3]
Across the nation, sanctuary states support undocumented residents with sanctuary laws, limiting local law enforcement participation in deportation.[4] But these same states actively sabotage their sanctuary promises by participating in a nationwide network of 80 state and regional fusion centers. Organized by DHS (ICE’s parent agency), fusion centers support collaboration and data sharing between local, state and federal law enforcement, including ICE.[5] Given foreign powers’ persistent and successful efforts to recruit state and local police officers, officers’ easy access to sensitive information at fusion centers threatens national security.[6] Fusion centers have also facilitated American surveillance’s worst abuses, targeting Muslim and BIPOC communities, treating peaceful activists as threats, and systematically dismantling constitutional protections against mass surveillance. While fusion centers have been in the news for years, the public rarely understands their role in enabling deportation and defying sanctuary protections for undocumented immigrants.
II. Google for Cops and ICE
Congress authorized fusion centers in 2004 to host local, state, and federal law enforcement agents under one roof. The idea was that they would share resources and deconflict missions, and like almost all post-9/11 policing projects, the project was sold to the public with the promise of preventing terrorism.[7] In reality, fusion centers have done little to prevent the nightmarish scenarios that proponents used to justify their creation. Instead, they prioritize participating agencies’ pet projects.
While fusion centers are notoriously secretive, the public got a glimpse behind the curtain after a U.S. Senate investigation in 2012. But the biggest break didn’t come from lawmakers, but law breakers, when hackers published thousands of “BlueLeaks” documents in 2021.[8] The Senate review, BlueLeaks, and Freedom of Information Law responses show fusion centers without a mission, just mission sprawl. Fusion centers investigate everything from low-level theft to drug use, vandalism, driving infractions, student discipline, immigration status… the list goes on.[9] New Jersey’s fusion center reveled in misdemeanor mania, helping officers issue tickets for minor offenses.[10] The costly diversion peaked in 2014, swamping local courts with a fivefold increase in misdemeanor cases, including 99 arrests for bicycle riding without a bell.[11] Fusion centers also routinely investigate constitutionally protected activity including strikes, labor management incidents, and union controversies.[12] From Maine to California and Minnesota to Texas, fusion centers have spied on peaceful protestors, equating activism with danger.[13]
Fusion centers track these weak and nonexistent threats with very powerful databases, analytical tools, and surveillance hardware. As the director of Delaware’s fusion center put it: “When we have the money, we’ll start going to…other agencies and say, ‘Are you willing to share that database and what would it cost?’”[14]
BlueLeaks documents show four fusion centers that explicitly partner with ICE for deportation, offering a stunning array of surveillance tools to requesters who clearly identify themselves as ICE agents. There are likely far more centers that partner this way but simply weren’t included in the leaked dataset:
Sources[15]
The potential for abuse is staggering. Consider Casey Cody, an ICE agent based in South Dakota. Around 2019, Cody visited the state’s fusion center portal at least ten times for help tracking undocumented immigrants in South Dakota, Minnesota, and California.[16] Cody requested driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations, employer records, phone numbers, social media accounts, and more.[17] Likewise, ICE’s Law Enforcement Support Center obtained driver’s license photos and last known addresses from South Carolina’s fusion center to assist in deportation.[18]
These requests are all alarming, but particularly for the Philadelphia-area fusion center, located in a self-described sanctuary city. ICE agents use Philadelphia’s city resources to track undocumented drivers, weaponizing Philadelphia’s sweeping automated license plate reader system in violation of its sanctuary city laws.[19] Even as sanctuary cities pass laws to limit location data sharing with ICE, fusion centers remain a dangerous loophole that ICE agents readily exploit.[20]
ICE also taps fusion center subscriptions to private data brokers, like Thomson Reuters CLEAR and TransUnion TLO. CLEAR and TLO track nearly every American’s life—our addresses, relatives, location history, and even medical information.[21] When ICE surveillance leads to the arrests of targets’ friends and families, ICE chillingly writes them off as mere “collateral arrests.”[22]
ICE investigators also leverage fusion centers for invasive new technologies like facial recognition. South Carolina drivers likely had no idea that getting a license would mean standing in a perpetual ICE lineup. As states increasingly limit ICE’s direct access to driver’s licenses due to public pushback, fusion centers provide a workaround. Indeed, ICE’s 2020 facial recognition manual specifically suggests turning to fusion centers.[23] And agents aren’t always discreet. In February 2018, a Department of Justice employee emailed a dozen fusion centers (plainly CCing an ICE agent), asking for a facial recognition search.[24]
In Philadelphia, ICE also requests information about unproven, often wrong, gang allegations. Nationwide, gang databases have come under fire for profiling Black and Latinx youth with shaky evidence and blatant racism.[25] Through a game of law enforcement telephone, fusion centers can transform these baseless gang allegations into a basis for deportation.[26] And the scale of this abuse is stunning. ICE accessed Chicago’s gang allegations database more than 32,000 times over the course of a decade, and we don’t know how many other cities maintain such databases.[27]
It’s hard to think of data that ICE can’t get through fusion centers. ICE employees routinely obtain social media and open-source information, lists of friends and family, home addresses, workplaces, and more. In Philadelphia, ICE asks the fusion center to crack cellphones using its Cellebrite device, which breaks into locked phones and extracts all of the information therein. DHS even taps the Northern California fusion center for social media posts because ICE agents are blocked from accessing Facebook at work.[28]
“[I]n a typical fusion center, an FBI agent might be sitting next to a state highway patrol officer; who might be sitting next to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agent… They don’t merely share space. They share databases and techniques… They break down barriers and build networks.”
III. “Can you hook this brother up?”: Favors for ICE
ICE doesn’t just leverage fusion centers’ databases; it has a seat at the table. DHS houses almost one in three fusion centers.[30] And even where state and local law enforcement take the lead, DHS representatives still play a central role.[31] Take the Vermont Intelligence Center: it operates across the hall from ICE’s national tipline, a controversial project that lets spurned lovers, vengeful neighbors, unscrupulous employers, and others retaliate against undocumented individuals.[32]
As anticipated, co-location creates chummy cooperation. In one case, a fusion center analyst asked the Vermont DMV to use facial recognition on a thirty-year-old woman accused of merely overstaying her visa.[33] It’s a far cry from the counterterrorism narrative used to sell the center.[34]
ICE circumvents state and local sanctuary protections by bypassing formal channels, simply emailing fusion center friends instead. In Colorado, ICE agent Jeffrey Hamilton took advantage of being assigned to the state’s fusion center to repeatedly use state employees and resources for deportations, violating state sanctuary protections.[35] In one case, he was able to run a facial recognition search without even a case number, getting results in just an hour:
Looking for some help with facial recognition on the attached. Anything you can assist with?
ICE agent to Jeffrey Hamilton, November 18, 2019
Hi folks,
This is an on-the-fly request, we have folks in the field working this right now. There is no case number yet.
I’m looking for facial recognition run as far and wide as possible.
Hamilton to fusion center and state DMV employees, November 18, 2019
Can you hook this brother up?
DMV employee forwards request to colleagues, November 18, 2019
Clearview showed a match to an Instagram profile that was taken down. There are 2 screenshots attached…
DMV colleague, November 18, 2019
In California, ICE informally tapped the Orange County fusion center for help locating immigrants’ vehicles. ICE’s contract with Motorola lets it search thousands of license plate readers nationwide, but it restricts deportation agents from accessing data from jurisdictions that opt out, like those barred by California sanctuary laws.[36] But when ICE employees asked the fusion center to search those records to advance ICE investigations, fusion center employees were happy to oblige:
Hey, sorry to bother you again. Today must be the day for plate inquires.... Will you please run CA plate [number]? Thank you thank you
ICE employee to Orange County fusion center employee, April 19, 2018.
Hi. No LE [law enforcement] scans since January. Only the commercial ones.
Fusion center employee, April 19, 2018
Thank you
ICE employee, April 19, 2018
No problem, my friend.[37]
Fusion center employee, April 19, 2018
A National Security Concern
Giving thousands of state and local police officers systematic access to national security agencies’ databases is nothing short of reckless.[38] 98% of fusion centers provide participants access to DHS or FBI databases, and that’s just the tip of the national security iceberg.[39] Foreign powers frequently cultivate state and local police as assets. Take a 2018 police tour of Egypt, which promised 100 New York officers “to see Egypt in a different light.”[40] A few years later, the tour’s organizer was charged with acting as an Egyptian agent, using his police relationships to help Egypt spy on anti-regime activists in the United States.[41] In 2023, a retired NYPD officer was convicted of spying for China, using police databases to pass along detailed information about a Chinese dissident and his family as part of China’s Operation Fox Hunt, which tracks and harasses dissidents abroad.[42] Two other NYPD officers were fired following similar charges.[43] In this way, fusion centers don’t just allow ICE to target immigrant communities, they also allow foreign powers to track those who fled to the US to find safety.
IV. Police to ICE: Deport My Caseload, Just Make It Go Away
Secretary Napolitano hoped that fusion centers would build law enforcement cooperation, but she never predicted how quickly those agencies would start breaking the law themselves.[44] Boston’s fusion center is a particularly egregious example.[45] Over just three years, the fusion center reported 135 children to ICE after incidents at school, potentially putting them at risk of deportation.[46] Suddenly, doing graffiti or acting up in assembly could lead to deportation.[47] Boston scrambled to stop the damage, sharply limiting school officers’ reporting duties.[48] But the city’s fusion center continues to put children at risk by maintaining a gang database that crudely classifies Latinx children as threats, giving ICE agents a pretext to deport them.[49] In one case, a blue soccer jersey and Chicago Bulls hat were enough to falsely flag a kid as a gang member.[50] Boston police can use the fusion center to target children simply because they dislike them—as one fusion center officer told ICE, “We don’t have anything on him yet. Still watching him”—violating all sanctuary safeguards.[51]
Sadly, the situation in Northern California’s fusion center is almost as damning. Despite California’s sanctuary laws, local police repeatedly asked the Northern California fusion center to search ICE’s Data Analysis System database—a database of “deportable” individuals.[52] Officers who suspect someone, but who don’t have enough evidence to apply for a warrant, can simply sidestep the courts and ask ICE to deport them instead. Nothing stops officers from targeting people with whom they simply have personal disputes.
V. No Consequences
“Nationally, fusion centers fostered suspicion of racial justice activists, goading police to overreact.”
Image provided by Unsplash.
Fusion centers’ lawlessness in violating state and local sanctuary protections is only rivaled by their overall incompetence and financial mismanagement.
No Consequences for Continuing Shoddy Work
When the U.S. Senate audited fusion centers in 2012, the results were clear: fusion centers failed to identify a single terrorism plot.[53] In fact, many fusion centers didn’t even attempt intelligence reporting, which is probably a good thing.[54] On the rare occasions that fusion centers did report intelligence, it was “shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens’ civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism.”[55] DHS officials often tried to block publication of fusion center intelligence reports.[56] When reports did circulate, the response was damning. One reviewer responded to a fusion center report on fold-down car seats by saying it “is common knowledge…. There is nothing of any intelligence value in this report.”[57]
Matters remained just as dysfunctional after the 2012 audit. In 2016, a New York fusion center issued an alert over clown sightings.[58] In 2019, Maine’s fusion center circulated an analysis of terrorism risks to Christmas tree lightings and crafts fairs.[59] Oftentimes, fusion centers simply regurgitate news about war and conflict abroad, adding to a constant sense of alarm without providing any actionable information. Unsurprisingly, no DHS officials faced discipline for this bad intelligence.[60]
No Consequences for Illegal Work
Fusion centers don’t just spread alarm about nonexistent threats, they illegally compile dossiers on Americans who aren’t even suspected of a crime, a blatant violation of the First and Fourth Amendments. Fusion centers generate and circulate a huge volume of Suspicious Activity Reports (“SARs”) that try to reframe lawful everyday activity as intelligence leads. Middle Eastern men have been deemed “suspicious” for buying bottled water.[61] Muslim women have been tracked for simply wearing religious head coverings.[62] From “possible mental health concerns” to “suspicious tattoos,” Americans’ most mundane choices are scrutinized through the post-9/11 intelligence lens.[63]
Alarmingly, this pattern extends to reframing peaceful protest as a public safety threat. In 2017, police assaulted indigenous activists with water hoses and rubber bullets after North Dakota’s fusion center spread discredited rumors about protesters improvising explosives.[64] Virginia’s fusion center likened environmental protestors’ lawsuits and tree camping to Al Qaeda.[65] Colorado’s fusion center included peaceful environmental groups in its guide, “Violent Extremism in Colorado.”[66] And the ideological skew of these assessments reveals a blatant double standard. Boston’s fusion center equated violent anti-abortion extremists and peaceful abortion rights activists in threat assessments: “[t]he issues surrounding abortion may motivate pro-life and/or pro-choice extremists to carry out acts of violence to further their political agenda.”[67]
Nationally, fusion centers fostered suspicion of racial justice activists, goading police to overreact.[68] Maine’s fusion center responded to 2020 Black Lives Matter protests with right-wing conspiracy theories about racial justice activists.[69] The Northern California fusion center responded with twice-daily warnings about racial justice protests to 14,000 police officers—even as protestors remained mostly peaceful.[70] Austin’s fusion center scoured social media to prepare portfolios on Black Lives Matter organizers, which it forwarded to law enforcement and ICE.[71] Boston’s fusion center used software to search social media systematically for posts tagged #ummah (“community” in Arabic) and with other mundane terms used by Muslim American and racial justice activists.[72]
No Consequences for Financial Fraud
The Senate’s 2012 audit found that DHS had no idea where many fusion center funds were going and what they were purchasing. It could only put the cost of its fusion center debacle at “$289 million to $1.4 billion” in the first eight years.[73] Local police took advantage of DHS’s disorder and eagerly got in on the grift:
Washington, DC police spent $700,000 in DC fusion center grants to buy itself surveillance technology (a cellphone tracking system and an upgraded electronic records platform).[74]
In Arizona, local police bought two tricked-out sports utility vehicles with $80,000 in fusion center funds.[75] A city official used one Chevrolet Tahoe to commute to the firehouse; another, warzone-ready Tahoe (including patrol rifle, chemical protective gear, and gas mask) went to Arizona State University’s K-9 unit.
San Diego spent $75,000 on flat screen TVs, which officers used to watch the news.[76] $200,000 bought 116 computers… for just 80 fusion center employees. Officials admitted that some computers were allocated elsewhere and wrote off the TVs as “a huge mistake.”
While there hasn’t been another audit in the subsequent 12 years, we do know that approximately $5 billion has been spent on fusion centers in that time.[77] Just what it pays for…we can only imagine.
VI. Recommendations for Municipalities with Sanctuary Laws and Fusion Centers
Given fusion centers’ history of failure, abuse, and mismanagement, the best option for most localities is to simply withdraw from these problematic partnerships and end information sharing. However, this may not be politically or financially viable in some jurisdictions.
ICE routinely uses its local law enforcement grants to coerce fusion center participation.[78] From 2006 to 2021, DHS required grantees to dedicate 25% of key local grants towards “terrorism prevention,” with fusion centers being a key beneficiary.[79] In 2022, it raised that amount to 30%.[80] This has left many cities trapped, forced to choose between funding fusion center boondoggles and forgoing millions in grant funding.[81] Jurisdictions unwilling to risk losing DHS funding can still take steps to mitigate fusion center risks.
“Jurisdictions unwilling to risk losing DHS funding can still take steps to mitigate fusion center risks.”
Image provied by Unsplash.
ICE Out of Fusion Centers in Regions with Sanctuary Laws
59 fusion centers are co-located with state, county or city law enforcement departments.[82] Police departments in sanctuary jurisdictions should push to ban ICE agents and other DHS employees involved in immigration enforcement from their fusion centers. Additionally, local agencies should oppose co-location of fusion centers with ICE offices, such as Vermont’s fusion center.
Civil Liberties Oversight
Localities with fusion centers must provide the public with frequent, independent audits of fusion center activities, including disclosure of cooperation with ICE, surveillance of protected First Amendment activity, and any misuse of public funds. In addition to reviewing direct ICE participation in fusion center activities, it is crucial to audit informal data sharing practices that have so often allowed ICE agents to access state and local surveillance resources.
Other forms of data sharing
It is not enough to simply block direct cooperation with ICE, or even its involvement in fusion centers as a whole. Jurisdictions with sanctuary laws must also holistically review all data sharing practices by police and fusion center vendors, identifying any commercial third parties that can act as a pass-through vehicle for municipal data. For example, cities that share their license plate scans with Motorola should opt out of sharing that data with ICE.[83] Localities should draft memorandums of understanding to prevent federal, state, and local partners from sharing data with ICE absent a court order.
VII. Conclusion
No city or state can provide sanctuary to undocumented residents while actively sharing data with ICE. As fusion centers’ numbers and power continue to grow, the threat they pose to immigrant communities is accelerating. Without dramatic steps, like localities’ large-scale resignation from participation in fusion centers, sanctuary promises will continue to be undercut by the daily reality of wholesale data sharing. Luckily, every city and state that participates in fusion centers still has the power to opt out, and the time for them to do so is now.
-
[1] Total federal, state, and local budget. “2021 National Network of Fusion Centers Assessment: Summary of Findings” (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, December 2022), https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/2021%20Fusion%20Centers%20Assessment%20Summary%20of%20Findings.pdf.
[2] Emails obtained by the Northern California American Civil Liberties Union, published March 13, 2019, https://www.aclunc.org/docs/DOCS_031319.pdf#page=463. For news coverage, see Jazmine Ulloa, “ICE Is Tracking Immigrants with the Help of California Sanctuary Cities, Court Records Show,” Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-ice-license-plate-immigrants-20190313-story.html.
[3] Email exchange between Jeffery Hamilton (ICE) and William Schlitter (Colorado DMV), February 19, 2019, from a cache of emails obtained by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and shared privately with S.T.O.P. A leaked copy of the Colorado fusion center’s organizational chart in 2019 shows that Hamilton is the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officer assigned to the Colorado Information Analysis Center, the state’s fusion center.
Colorado Information Analysis Center, “Colorado Information Analysis Center (CIAC): An Overview,” accessed August 14, 2024, https://hunter.ddosecrets.com/search?cslimit=30&csq=maine%20terrorism&facet=collection_id&facet_size%3Acollection_id=10&facet_total%3Acollection_id=true&filter%3Acollection_id=1&limit=30&q=%22organization%20chart%22#page=7&preview%3Aid=636811.49d1c46f73f173d9cfa90d41776f735022ec11bc&preview%3Aprofile=true.
[4] “Sanctuary Policies: An Overview” (American Immigration Council, December 2020), https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/sanctuary_policies_an_overview.pdf.
[5] “Fusion Center Locations and Contact Information,” Department of Homeland Security, October 4, 2022, https://www.dhs.gov/fusion-center-locations-and-contact-information.
[6] Jeff Stein, “How Foreign Spies Are Infiltrating US Police,” The Spectator, January 16, 2022, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-foreign-spies-are-infiltrating-us-police/.
[7] Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, S.2845, 108th Cong. (2004).
[8] “Federal Support for and Involvement in State and Local Fusion Centers: Majority and Minority Staff Report,” U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, October 12, 2012, https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/doc/10-3-2012%20PSI%20STAFF%20REPORT%20re%20FUSION%20CENTERS.2.pdf. See also “BlueLeaks,” The Intercept, April 21, 2021, https://theintercept.com/collections/blueleaks/.
[9] Micah Lee, “Hack of 251 Law Enforcement Websites Exposes Personal Data of 700,000 Cops,” The Intercept, July 15, 2020, https://theintercept.com/2020/07/15/blueleaks-anonymous-ddos-law-enforcement-hack/.
[10] Sahar F. Aziz, “Shining a Light on New Jersey's Secret Intelligence System,” Rutgers University Law School Center for Security, Race and Rights, March 15, 2023: 19, https://ssrn.com/abstract=4400598. Aziz cites research by Brendan McQuade in Pacifying the Homeland, University of California Press (2019).
[11] Aziz, “New Jersey's Intelligence System,” citing McQuade.
[12] Jacob Hamburger and Kathleen Schmidt, “The Digital Deportation Machine: How Surveillance Technology Undermines Chicago’s Welcoming City Policy” (Just Futures Law, June 2021), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62c3198c117dd661bd99eb3a/t/66aba3caf34f012289d7252a/1722524620055/Report11_OCAD_SRW-053121.pdf.
[13] Michael German, Rachel Levinson-Waldman, and Kaylana Mueller-Hsia, “Ending Fusion Center Abuses: A Roadmap for Robust Federal Oversight,” Brennan Center for Justice, September 15, 2022, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/ending-fusion-center-abuses.
[14] Michael German and Jay Stanley, “What’s Wrong with Fusion Centers?” American Civil Liberties Union, December 2007, https://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/privacy/fusioncenter_20071212.pdf#page=16.
[15] “RFI,” Delaware Valley Intelligence Center, https://hunter.ddosecrets.com/search?limit=30&q=dvic%20rfi#preview%3Aid=693986.455fb46aac7a4e4a5df86f4e96496c9527293101&preview%3Aprofile=true. “Requests,” Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, https://hunter.ddosecrets.com/search?limit=30&q=requests.csv#preview%3Aid=208281.874b3276824921db0b2ab73db63000b228e7b697&preview%3Aprofile=true. “RFI,” South Carolina Information and Intelligence Center, https://hunter.ddosecrets.com/search?limit=30&q=rfi.csv%20south%20carolina#preview%3Aid=307947.d3a3ff9c5b3018f5e3a8e1d74c3f30009979576a&preview%3Amode=info&preview%3Aprofile=true. “Requests,” South Dakota Fusion Center, https://hunter.ddosecrets.com/datasets/1?cslimit=30&csq=casey.j.cody%40ice.dhs.gov#mode=search&preview%3Aid=960390.405cddf68083a0a601f0b75bdb2db33fc510db24&preview%3Aprofile=true. All accessed September 2, 2024.
[16] “Requests,” South Dakota Fusion Center.
[17] Individuals were charged with immigration-related offenses like “Use of fraudulent documents” or “Fraud / illegal employment.”
[18] “RFI,” South Carolina Information and Intelligence Center.
[19] For more on ICE’s use of automated license plate reader data, see “Watch Out: ICE Might Be Tracking Your Car,” Immigrant Defense Project, February 2021, https://www.immigrantdefenseproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ALPR-community-handout-FINAL-2.23.21.pdf.
[20] Vasudha Talla, “Documents Reveal ICE Using Driver Location Data From Local Police for Deportations” (American Civil Liberties Union, March 13, 2019), https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/documents-reveal-ice-using-driver-location-data. The “ICE Out of D.C.” Coalition believes that police ALPR data is shared with ICE through the DC-area fusion center. Kirsten Reilly, Julie Mao, and Dinesh McCoy, “DC Law Enforcement Surveillance Technology,” Just Futures Law, Villanova University, Mijente, ICE Out of DC Coalition (June 2022), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62c3198c117dd661bd99eb3a/t/66aba29bf7fc2e038f11a018/1722524316381/DC+Law+Enforcement+Surveillance+Technology.pdf.
[21] “CLEAR - Investigation Solution,” Thomson Reuters, accessed September 2, 2024, https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/clear. See also “TLOxp for Law Enforcement,” accessed September 2, 2024, https://www.tlo.com/law-enforcement.
[22] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/magazine/ice-surveillance-deportation.html
[23] “Privacy Impact Assessment for the ICE Use of Facial Recognition Services” (US Department of Homeland Security, May 13, 2020), https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/privacy-pia-ice-frs-054-may2020.pdf.
[24] Email from Sandy Rao (Department of Justice), carbon copying Michael Sayed (ICE), to ten fusion centers, February 2, 2018, from a cache of emails obtained by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and shared privately with S.T.O.P.
[25] Andy Ratto, Nina Loshkajian, and Eleni Manis, “Guilt By Association: How Police Databases Punish Black and Latinx Youth,” S.T.O.P. - The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, September 5, 2023, https://www.stopspying.org/guilt-by-association.
[26] At least three judges have thrown out deportation proceedings based on gang membership accusations that have no basis in evidence. Stephan, “Conspiracy: Contemporary Gang Policing,” 1025.
[27] From 2009-2018. See Hamburger and Schmidt, “Digital Deportation Machine.”
[28] “Looking for any social media picture of [name]... She does not appear to have a criminal history or MD drivers license… I do not have the ability to use Facebook because of the IT restrictions placed on my gov’t laptop.”
[29] Janet Napolitano, “Speech to the Council on Foreign Relations on ‘Refocusing’ Homeland Security,” July 29, 2009, https://publicintelligence.net/janet-napolitano-speech-to-the-council-on-foreign-relations-on-refocusing-homeland-security/.
[30] “2021 Fusion Centers Assessment,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
[31] DHS officials appear prominently on fusion centers’ organizational charts in Washington state, Northern California, and Colorado, state sanctuary laws notwithstanding. See “Washington State Fusion Center Overview Brief,” Public Intelligence, June 26, 2010, https://publicintelligence.net/cui-washington-state-fusion-center-overview-brief/. See also “NCHIDTA-NCRIC Org Chart,” November 16, 2017, https://hunter.ddosecrets.com/search?cslimit=30&csq=maine%20terrorism&facet=collection_id&facet_size%3Acollection_id=10&facet_total%3Acollection_id=true&filter%3Acollection_id=1&limit=30&q=%22org%20chart%22#preview%3Aid=171955.11e5c0521a54ec4c50ab8fd8064ddf15be865d69&preview%3Aprofile=true. See also Colorado Information Analysis Center, “CIAC: An Overview.”
[32] “LESC Communications Section,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, accessed July 1, 2024, https://www.ice.gov/field-office/lesc-communications-section. See also “Vermont Intelligence Center,” Vermont State Police, accessed July 1, 2024, https://vsp.vermont.gov/criminal/vic. See also Maleeha Syed, Elizabeth Murray, and Sawyer Loftus, “‘Why Not Have It in Vermont?’ How ICE’s Nerve Center Landed in Williston,” Burlington Free Press, September 2, 2019, https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2019/09/03/ice-national-global-operations-williston-vermont-trump-senator-leahy/1934500001/.
[33] Elizabeth Hewitt, “State Halts Facial Recognition Program to Review Legality,” VTDigger, May 25, 2017, http://vtdigger.org/2017/05/25/state-halts-facial-recognition-program-review-legality/.
[34] VT. STAT. ANN. tit. 20, § 4651 (2017).
[35] From a cache of emails obtained by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and shared privately with S.T.O.P. Hamilton’s fusion center participation was revealed in a leaked copy of the Colorado fusion center’s organizational chart.
Colorado Information Analysis Center, “Colorado Information Analysis Center (CIAC): An Overview,” accessed August 14, 2024, https://hunter.ddosecrets.com/search?cslimit=30&csq=maine%20terrorism&facet=collection_id&facet_size%3Acollection_id=10&facet_total%3Acollection_id=true&filter%3Acollection_id=1&limit=30&q=%22organization%20chart%22#page=7&preview%3Aid=636811.49d1c46f73f173d9cfa90d41776f735022ec11bc&preview%3Aprofile=true.
[36] April Glaser, “Sanctuary Cities Are Handing ICE a Map,” Slate, March 13, 2018, https://slate.com/technology/2018/03/how-ice-may-be-able-to-access-license-plate-data-from-sanctuary-cities-and-use-it-for-arrests.html. See also “California Values Act (SB 54),” ACLU of Southern California, June 10, 2019, https://www.aclusocal.org/en/know-your-rights/california-values-act-sb-54.
[37] This employee worked for Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE agency that conducts both immigration and criminal investigations. Documents obtained by the Northern California ACLU, March 13, 2019, https://www.aclunc.org/docs/DOCS_031319.pdf#page=444.
[38] “Combating Foreign Influence,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, accessed September 29, 2024, https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/foreign-influence.
[39] “2021 Fusion Centers Assessment,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
[40] Stein, “Spies Infiltrating US Police.”
[41] In August 2024, he pled guilty to lesser charges. Jonathan Stempel, “U.S. Charges New York Man with Acting as Egyptian Agent, Tracking Political Opponents,” Reuters, January 6, 2022, sec. United States, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-charges-new-york-man-with-acting-egyptian-agent-tracking-political-opponents-2022-01-06/. See also Luc Cohen, “New York Man Accused of Being Egyptian Agent Pleads Guilty to Lesser Charge,” Reuters, August 14, 2024, sec. Legal, https://www.reuters.com/legal/new-york-man-accused-being-egyptian-agent-pleads-guilty-lesser-charge-2024-08-14/.
[42] “Federal Jury Convicts Three Defendants of Interstate Stalking of Chinese Nationals in the U.S. and Two of Those Defendants for Acting or Conspiring to Act on Behalf of the People’s Republic of China,” United States Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York, June 20, 2023, https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/federal-jury-convicts-three-defendants-interstate-stalking-chinese-nationals-us-and.
[43] Both were acquitted but fired following spying investigations. See Rong Xiaoqing, “Chinese Police Officer Fired Following FBI Spying Investigation,” The City, May 22, 2024, https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/05/22/chinese-officer-nypd-fbi-spying/. See also Collins, “A Police Officer Was Accused of Spying for China. The Charges Were Dropped, but the NYPD Fired Him,” AP News, March 20, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/nypd-angwang-fired-spying-china-tibet-fd36a6aaba16db9c73160a789e7686db.
[44] Napolitano, Council on Foreign Relations.
[45] “What’s the Matter with the Boston Regional Intelligence Center?,” Privacy SOS, accessed August 16, 2024, https://privacysos.org/whats-the-matter-with-the-boston-regional-intelligence-center/.
[46] Between 2014 and 2017. “Extensive Entanglement Between Boston Public Schools and ICE, Documents Show” (Lawyers for Civil Rights Boston, January 6, 2020), https://media.wbur.org/wp/2020/01/Boston-Public-Schools-and-ICE.pdf. See also Tori Bedford, “Civil Rights Group Accuses BPS Of Sharing Student Information With ICE,” GBH, January 7, 2020, https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2020-01-06/civil-rights-group-accuses-bps-of-sharing-student-information-with-ice.
[47] Shannon Dooling, “Citing New Documents, Advocates Call On Boston Public Schools To Stop Sharing Info With ICE,” WBUR, January 7, 2020, https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/01/06/bps-ice-information-sharing-new-documents.
[48] Rebecca Cadenhead, “The State of Surveillance in Boston Public Schools,” The Harvard Crimson, November 11, 2021, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/11/11/boston-school-surveillance/. See also 2020 Mass. Acts ch. 253, § 78.
[49] “Unmasking the Boston Police Department’s Gang Database: How an Arbitrary System Criminalizes Innocent Conduct,” Harvard Law Review 137 (March 12, 2024), https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-137/unmasking-the-boston-police-departments-gang-database-how-an-arbitrary-system-criminalizes-innocent-conduct/.
[50] The Editorial Board, “The Boston Police Gang Database Gets Overdue Attention,” The Boston Globe, January 24, 2022, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/01/24/opinion/boston-police-gang-database-gets-overdue-attention/.
[51] Cadenhead, “Surveillance in Boston Schools.”
[52] “Requests,” Northern California Regional Intelligence Center. The deportation arm of ICE operates the Data Analysis System (“DAS”) database to identify and locate individuals that ICE deems “amenable to removal.” Despite California’s sanctuary law, local police are on record asking the Northern California fusion center to initiate DAS inquiries. See also “Privacy Impact Assessment for the Data Analysis System (DAS)” (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, September 29, 2017), https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/privacy-pia-ice-das-september2017.pdf.
[53] Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “State and Local Fusion Centers,” p. 2.
[54] Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “State and Local Fusion Centers,” p. 31.
[55] Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “State and Local Fusion Centers,” p. 1.
[56] Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “State and Local Fusion Centers,” p. 2.
[57] Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “State and Local Fusion Centers,” p. 32.
[58] New York State Intelligence Center, “Informational Bulletin,” September 30, 2016, https://hunter.ddosecrets.com/datasets/1?cslimit=30&csq=nysic%20#mode=search&preview%3Aid=37955.84f68eaa2637d7c648f15a49c25b55b71fd0c8a0&preview%3Aprofile=true.
[59] Maine Information and Analysis Center, “A Maine Regional Perspective: Holiday Celebrations, Large Gatherings Remain Attractive Targets for Violent Extremists in the Homeland,” December 6, 2019, https://hunter.ddosecrets.com/search?facet=collection_id&facet_size%3Acollection_id=10&facet_total%3Acollection_id=true&filter%3Acollection_id=1&limit=30&q=%22Maine%20Regional%20Perspective%22#preview%3Aid=538791.75b65730f0e0b19f64a998fb19b35c7bc2d20738&preview%3Aprofile=true.
[60] Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “State and Local Fusion Centers,” p. 46.
[61] “Selected Suspicious Activity Reports from the Central California Intelligence Center and Joint Regional Intelligence Center” (ACLU Northern California, August 6, 2012), https://www.aclunc.org/sites/default/files/asset_upload_file470_12586.pdf.
[62] Letter to Attorney General Holder, “Re: Revision of Suspicious Activity Reporting Functional Standard,” American Civil Liberties Union, September 19, 2013, https://www.aclunc.org/sites/default/files/asset_upload_file444_12586.pdf.
[63] Brendan McQuade, “Testimony of Brendan McQuade: An Act to End the Maine Information and Analysis Center,” April 12, 2021, https://legislature.maine.gov/testimony/resources/CJPS20210412McQuade132626469723618349.pdf. See also “SARs,” Orange County Intelligence Assessment Center, https://hunter.ddosecrets.com/search?limit=30&q=%22suspicious%20tattoo%22%20sar#preview%3Aid=936088.c1307bb4e47b224c559e322e095c8b12dd4c43f9&preview%3Amode=info&preview%3Aprofile=true.
[64] Alleen Brown, Will Parrish, and Alice Speri, “Standing Rock Documents Expose Inner Workings of ‘Surveillance-Industrial Complex,’” The Intercept, June 3, 2017, https://theintercept.com/2017/06/03/standing-rock-documents-expose-inner-workings-of-surveillance-industrial-complex/.
[65] Brown, “Tilting at Windmills.”
[66] Brown, “Tilting at Windmills.”
[67] Boston Regional Intelligence Center, “BRIC Quarterly Threat Assessment, Q2,” July 2019,
[68] German, Levinson-Waldman, and Mueller-Hsia, “Ending Fusion Center Abuses.”
[69] Chris Cushing et al., “MIAC Shadow Report: Reporting on MIAC Auditing Processes Supplemental to the DPS Report,” April 1, 2022, https://mainebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MIAC-Shadow-Report.pdf.
[70] Micah Lee, “How Northern California’s Police Intelligence Center Tracked Protests,” The Intercept, August 17, 2020, https://theintercept.com/2020/08/17/blueleaks-california-ncric-black-lives-matter-protesters/.
[71] Mara Hvistendahl, “Austin Fusion Center Spied on Nonpolitical Cultural Events,” The Intercept, November 30, 2020, https://theintercept.com/2020/11/30/austin-fusion-center-surveillance-black-lives-matter-cultural-events/.
[72] “Geofeedia Alerts, Boston Regional Intelligence Center,” Privacy SOS, February 2018, https://privacysos.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Geofeedia-Alerts.pdf#page=25.
[73] Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “State and Local Fusion Centers,” p. 3.
[74] Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “State and Local Fusion Centers,” p. 80-81.
[75] Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “State and Local Fusion Centers,” p. 74.
[76] Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, “State and Local Fusion Centers,” p. 79.
[77] Fusion centers’ annual cost tops $400 million as of 2021, the most recent year for which data is publicly available. “2021 Fusion Centers Assessment,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
[78] “Homeland Security Grant Program,” FEMA.gov, April 16, 2024, https://www.fema.gov/grants/preparedness/homeland-security. In 2024, it will award $373.5 million in State Homeland Security Program (“SHSP”) grants and $553.5 million in Urban Area Security Initiative (“UASI”) grants to municipalities, not to mention an additional $81 million in Operation Stonegarden grants to police who cooperate with ICE. See also Alli Finn et al., “DHS Open for Business: How Tech Corporations Bring the War on Terror to Our Neighborhoods,” Action Center on Race and the Economy (blog), December 6, 2022, https://acrecampaigns.org/research_post/dhs-open-for-business/.
[79] “Fusion Center,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security, February 26, 2024, https://www.dhs.gov/keywords/fusion-center.
[80] Finn et al., “DHS Open for Business.”
[81] Finn et al., “DHS Open for Business.”
[82] 2021 Fusion Centers Assessment,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
[83] “American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century” (Georgetown Center on Privacy and Technology, May 10, 2022), https://americandragnet.org/. See also “How ICE and DMVs Share Information,” National Immigration Law Center, accessed June 30, 2024, https://www.nilc.org/issues/drivers-licenses/ice-dmvs-share-information/. See also Vasudha Talla, “Documents Reveal ICE Using Driver Location Data From Local Police for Deportations” (American Civil Liberties Union, March 13, 2019), https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/documents-reveal-ice-using-driver-location-data.
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