How Donald Trump could tap technology to supercharge deportations of immigrants in second term

Maru Mora-Villalpando had been living in the United States for 21 years when a letter arrived at her door with a deportation notice.

It was 11 months into Donald Trump’s presidency, and Mora-Villalpando thought she had taken all the necessary steps to keep her address hidden from authorities.

But she did not realise that immigration officials could track her whereabouts using basic information she had assumed was private, such as her car registration or utility bills. “I didn’t know all this data was being packaged up and given to authorities,” said Mora-Villalpando, a community organiser who works with immigrant and undocumented communities in Seattle, Washington.

“People would see ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents outside their homes, and we didn’t know how they would find us – well now we know.”

The Trump campaign and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

High-tech enterprise

Immigration enforcement is increasingly a high-tech enterprise.

Authorities can track migrants using data brokers that create detailed profiles of immigrants based on thousands of data points, as well as other state-of-the-art surveillance tools including facial recognition and licence plate readers.

Algorithms can help decide an immigrant’s fate on a range of issues, from whether they should wear an ankle monitor to whether an asylum case is flagged as suspicious.

Authorities are...

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