Palantir Delivers ICE ‘Dossier’ Tool Using Health Data to Find Deportation Targets

ICE agents now wield a Palantir-built tool that maps out deportation targets like a digital dragnet, pinpointing addresses with precision scores and encircling entire neighborhoods for sweeps. Revealed on January 14, 2026, the Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement system, or ELITE, represents the most advanced immigration surveillance technology in U.S. history, fueling a surge in detentions amid a sweeping enforcement push.

How ELITE Operates

ELITE overlays interactive maps with detailed profiles of potential targets, assigning confidence scores from 0 to 100 on address accuracy—such as 98.95 or 77.25 in training examples. Agents click on individuals or draw polygons around areas to select multiple targets at once, enabling coordinated raids. This setup streamlines operations, turning data into actionable enforcement plans.

Data Pipeline Powers the System

ELITE draws from federal sources like Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid records, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services databases, and commercial brokers including Thomson Reuters CLEAR. These feeds blend government files with utility bills, property records, vehicle registrations, and consumer details. Skip tracers supplement algorithms with fieldwork, snapping photos of homes and verifying locations to refine predictions.

Critics Highlight Indiscriminate Tactics

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden condemned ELITE as proof of ICE’s broad sweeps, stating it lets agents “find the closest person to arrest and disappear, using government and commercial data,” akin to selecting a nearby coffee shop. An ICE Fugitive Operations agent testified in Oregon that teams target “target-rich” neighborhoods over single leads, favoring high-density areas where single-address hits succeed only about 10 percent of the time. This approach yields multiple arrests per operation.

Detention Surge and Legal Backlash

ICE held 73,000 people in mid-January 2026, up 84 percent from the prior year and a record for the 23-year-old agency. The Trump administration targets 100,000 simultaneous detentions in what officials call an unprecedented crackdown. Yet 73.7 percent of detainees lack criminal convictions, undercutting claims of focusing on violent offenders. In Woodburn, Oregon—where 63 percent of residents are Latino—ELITE-guided raids netted over 30 farmworkers. Judges ordered five released for lacking detention authority, while attorneys cited blocked access violating due process. Oregon’s congressional delegation noted rising “dragnet practices” ignoring citizenship.

Palantir’s Role and Broader Network

Palantir has secured over $200 million from ICE since 2011, expanding platforms like Investigative Case Management and FALCON. Federal contracts nearly doubled from $541 million in 2024 to $970.5 million in 2025, including a $29.9 million ELITE deal under the ImmigrationOS umbrella for real-time immigrant tracking. Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis hold over $50 million in ICE pacts, aggregating data from 80-plus utilities covering 400 million profiles, plus licenses and phone records. Skip tracing contracts, potentially worth $281.25 million per vendor, task private investigators with verifying 50,000-address batches from 1.5 million targets, offering per-case pay and speed bonuses.

Pushback and Community Responses

Privacy advocates decry a “data broker to deportation pipeline” dodging Fourth Amendment warrants via purchases. The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns Palantir links siloed data like IRS files, immigration records, and social media, eroding civil liberties. The ACLU sued in Minnesota over warrantless arrests and profiling; Amnesty International flagged high human rights risks for migrants. In Woodburn, volunteers alert communities and film agents—one incident saw protesters trap two officers until they broke a car window for keys. Chicago student journalists built real-time ICE sighting maps from photos and reports.

Congress Steps In

Senator Wyden, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and eight Democrats demanded Palantir detail contracts, vowing probes into rights abuses by officials and enablers. CEO Alex Karp called tracking undocumented individuals a “legitimate, complex issue” and minor part of business. Palantir’s stock rose approximately 145 percent over the past year to $177.07, pushing market cap over $400 billion at 105 times revenue; government work is 55 percent of $2.9 billion annual revenue, capped by a $10 billion Army deal.

Legal scholars flag constitutional issues: Fourth Amendment evasion, Privacy Act lapses, Medicaid breaches, and bias in opaque algorithms that amplify historical suspicions without audits. As detentions climb and tools sharpen, debates intensify over enforcement scale, data ethics, and protections in an era of algorithmic policing.