In November 2025, the Associated Press published a sweeping investigation revealing that the U.S. Border Patrol has built a secretive, nationwide surveillance system that uses license plate readers to track millions of American drivers and trigger traffic stops based on algorithmically flagged “suspicious” travel patterns. The report, based on interviews with eight former officials and thousands of pages of documents, exposes how the agency has expanded far beyond its traditional border mission, deploying hidden cameras in cities like Phoenix, Detroit, and Chicago, and enlisting local police to carry out stops under the guise of minor traffic violations.
The AP identified at least four cameras in the greater Phoenix area — one more than 120 miles from the Mexican border, beyond the Border Patrol’s typical 100-mile jurisdiction — and multiple cameras in metropolitan Detroit and along the Michigan-Indiana border. Through public records requests, the AP obtained dozens of permits filed with Arizona and Michigan showing the agency frequently conceals its cameras inside traffic barrels or labels them as jobsite equipment. An AP photographer visited more than two dozen locations in Arizona and found most of the hidden equipment still in place.
The system, called the Conveyance Monitoring and Predictive Recognition System, collects license plate images and matches them against a database to identify “travel patterns indicative of illegal border related activities,” CBP said in a budget request. Former officials described how the algorithm flags unusual routes or quick turnarounds, which are then reviewed by intelligence analysts. The agency also has access to a nationwide network of readers run by the Drug Enforcement Administration and, until recently, to data from private vendors such as Flock Safety, Vigilant Solutions, and Rekor.
The AP documented multiple instances in which drivers were stopped on minor traffic violations after the Border Patrol flagged their license plates. Lorenzo Gutierrez Lugo, a driver for a small trucking company in South Carolina, was pulled over in Kingsville, Texas, in February for speeding — but a police report and court records show Border Patrol had requested the stop after tracking his route via license plate readers. He was interrogated, his truck searched, and no contraband found. He was arrested on suspicion of money laundering because he carried thousands of dollars in cash, money his employer Luis Barrios said came directly from customers in local Latino communities. No criminal charges were filed, and prosecutors eventually dropped efforts to seize the cash, vehicle, and trailer.
“We did everything right and had nothing to hide, and that was ultimately what they found,” Barrios told the AP.
Alek Schott, a Houston man, had his car searched after Border Patrol agents flagged an overnight trip to Carrizo Springs, Texas, and back, records show. Deputies in Bexar County pulled him over, held him for more than an hour, and found nothing. “I didn’t know it was illegal to drive in Texas,” Schott told the AP.
The AP obtained more than 70 pages of WhatsApp messages from a group called Northwest Highway, in which Border Patrol agents and Texas sheriff’s deputies traded tips about drivers, shared license plate data, and coordinated stops. In one exchange, a law enforcement official sent a photo of a driver’s license and identified the person as being in the country illegally; a Border Patrol agent was dispatched. The chats also show agents shared social media profiles and home addresses of stopped drivers, and determined whether vehicles were rentals or used for rideshare services.
One deputy, Joel Babb, who stopped Schott, said in a deposition: “The beautiful thing about the Texas Traffic Code is there’s thousands of things you can stop a vehicle for.” He described such stops as “whisper” or “wall” stops, meant to conceal that the true reason was a tip from federal agents watching license plate feeds.
Legal experts have raised concerns that the system — capturing license plate data on virtually anyone driving on public roads — may violate constitutional protections. “Courts have started to recognize that ‘large-scale surveillance technology that’s capturing everyone and everywhere at every time’ might be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment,” said Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University.
Nicole Ozer, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at UC Law San Francisco, told the AP: “They are collecting mass amounts of information about who people are, where they go, what they do, and who they know … engaging in dragnet surveillance of Americans on the streets, on the highways, in their cities, in their communities. These surveillance systems do not make communities safer.”
CBP said in a statement that the license plate reader program is “governed by a stringent, multi-layered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure the technology is applied responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes.” The agency declined to detail specific camera locations, citing national security, but said Border Patrol can legally operate anywhere in the United States.
The program has expanded through federal grants that equip local law enforcement with surveillance gear and overtime pay. Operation Stonegarden, a Department of Homeland Security grant program, has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars to local police and sheriffs for license plate readers, camera-equipped drones, and to pay officers to work on Border Patrol priorities. Congress allocated $450 million for Stonegarden over the next four fiscal years, up from $342 million in the previous four years. Documents obtained by the AP show that Border Patrol connects locally purchased plate readers to its computer systems, extending its network even in states that restrict data sharing with federal immigration authorities.
The AP reported that CBP’s attorneys instructed local governments in Arizona and Texas to withhold records about the program, arguing that release would “permit private citizens to anticipate weaknesses in a police department, avoid detection, jeopardize officer safety, and generally undermine police efforts.” Michigan redacted the exact locations of Border Patrol equipment, though the AP was able to determine general locations from county names.
Schott warned that his case is likely one of many. “I assume for every one person like me, who’s actually standing up, there’s a thousand people who just don’t have the means or the time or, you know, they just leave frustrated and angry. They don’t have the ability to move forward and hold anyone accountable,” he said. “I think there’s thousands of people getting treated this way.”