DHS uses facial recognition app and AI in Minnesota immigration sweeps

Luis Martinez, driving through a frigid Minneapolis-area neighborhood on the way to work, said federal agents boxed in his vehicle, demanded his identification, and scanned his face as they asked whether he was a U.S. citizen. In an Associated Press investigation published Jan. 30, the federal encounter is used to illustrate a larger shift in immigration enforcement in Minnesota and beyond, with DHS increasingly relying on biometric tools and interconnected data systems.

The AP described how DHS and other federal agencies have expanded their ability to collect, share and analyze personal data over the past year, supported by agreements with local, state, federal and international agencies and by contracts with technology companies and data brokers. The report said the databases include immigration and travel records, facial images, and data drawn from vehicle databases.

In Martinez’s case, the AP reported that a face scan did not produce a match and that the agents released him only after he produced his U.S. passport, which he said he carried because he feared such an encounter. Martinez, quoted in the AP story, said the situation has changed life in Minnesota: “It’s terrifying. It’s not safe anymore.”

The AP also reported that encounters observed by its journalists included agents holding phones close to people’s faces without asking for consent, and in some cases continuing to scan even after someone objects. According to the report, the technology resembles face recognition systems used at airports but differs because the person being scanned is not notified in the same way, and may not be able to opt out.

DHS disclosed online this week that it has been using Mobile Fortify, a facial recognition app that Customs and Border Protection said uses “trusted source photos” to compare scans taken by agents with facial data. CBP said the app—made by vendor NEC—relies on facial comparison or fingerprint-matching systems, and the AP reported that it was in operation for CBP and ICE before the immigration crackdown began in the Los Angeles area in June, when a website first reported its existence.

The AP said that without federal guidelines for using facial recognition tools, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights raised concerns in a September 2024 report about accuracy, oversight, transparency, discrimination, and access to justice. The AP also reported that in a lawsuit filed against DHS by the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago this month, the plaintiffs allege DHS used Mobile Fortify in the field more than 100,000 times, and that DHS told AP the app supports “accurate identity and immigration-status verification” and uses “a deliberately high-matching threshold.”

Beyond face scanning, the AP reported that advocates say the combination of surveillance tools lets authorities identify people through facial recognition, follow movements through license-plate readers, and, in some cases, use commercially available phone-location data to reconstruct daily routines and associations. When AP asked DHS about its expanding use of surveillance tools, DHS said it would not disclose law enforcement-sensitive methods, and it pointed to technology used to help arrest people it described as including “criminal gang members, child sex offenders, murderers, drug dealers [and] identity thieves.”

In separate comments to AP, Dan Herman, a former Customs and Border Protection senior adviser in the Biden administration who now works at the Center for American Progress, said the government’s access to facial recognition and other personal data poses a threat to privacy rights and civil liberties without adequate checks. Herman told AP that the access could become a national security asset “but there’s a concern about the potential for abuse,” warning: “Everyone should be very concerned about the potential that this data could be weaponized for improper purposes.”

The AP report also described body-camera issues in connection with federal agents’ killing of Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Pretti. It said that after the Trump administration scaled back an ICE body-camera program last year, administration officials said some agents tied to that killing were wearing body cameras and that the footage was being reviewed. The AP reported that Gregory Bovino, described as the administration’s top Border Patrol official charged with the Minneapolis crackdown until Monday, began wearing a bodycam in response to a judge’s order late last year.

Finally, the AP said DHS is piloting and deploying more than 100 artificial intelligence systems, including systems used in law enforcement activities, and noted that Congress authorized CBP last year to receive more than $2.7 billion to build border surveillance systems and add AI and other emerging technologies. The report also cited DHS disclosures about payments to Palantir to extend work on systems designed to locate people flagged for deportation, and said DHS is using Palantir’s AI models to sift through immigration enforcement tips submitted to its tip line. Rachel Levinson-Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice said more funding changes the landscape, telling AP: “We are developing these technologies for immigrant enforcement,” and questioning whether they would also be used against “U.S. citizens” involved in lawful or protest activity.

The Associated Press investigation comes as scrutiny has grown after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens this month, and as the debate continues about the limits of surveillance and the oversight of identity technologies in enforcement operations. As MSI previously reported in a developing thread, Minneapolis residents and supporters have also been gathering in response to ICE activity—raising fresh questions about how enforcement methods affect public trust and day-to-day safety in the Twin Cities.

Sources:

• The investigation was reported by Garance Burke for the Associated Press, with AP freelance photojournalist Adam Gray contributing from Minneapolis.