Bay Area a hub for immigration surveillance as Trump admin expands crackdown

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The Weekly Dispatch

Community-powered immigration news from the Bay Area.

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Welcome to El Tímpano’s Weekly Dispatch. I’m Erica Hellerstein, senior immigration, labor and economics reporter.

In today’s edition, we’re looking at the technology helping the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, a particularly relevant conversation for the Bay Area, home to Silicon Valley, some of the most diverse counties in the country and the largest number of immigrants under ICE digital surveillance nationwide.

A new app to fast-track “self-deportation”

On Monday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem unveiled the latest addition to the administration’s “self-deportation” campaign: an app called CBP Home. Details remain sparse, but the app appears to function as a reporting tool in which undocumented immigrants can submit details about their “intent to depart” with the agency—in other words, register their plans to leave the country permanently with the government.

CBP Home replaces the now-defunct CBP One app, which was used under the Biden administration to schedule appointments for asylum seekers on the border. Now, people who previously relied on CBP One to manage their asylum applications are automatically redirected to CBP Home, which seems to serve only one purpose: self-deportation. CBP One is no longer available for download on the App Store, but CBP Home is.

CBP One was just one part of a high-tech toolkit the Biden administration implemented to crack down on immigration. Biden also expanded the surveillance ecosystem along the U.S.-Mexico border and dramatically increased the number of immigrants electronically tracked by ICE while awaiting their court hearings.

These tools are now in service of what Trump has called “the largest deportation operation in American history.” New policies announced over the last few weeks also include a new requirement for all undocumented immigrants over age 14 to register their personal and biometric information in a government database and a proposal to let U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services review the social media accounts of asylum seekers and green card applicants for “national security.”

The Bay Area: A hub for ICE digital surveillance

This system of digital surveillance is already embedded in the Bay Area, where more immigrants are under ICE electronic monitoring than anywhere else in the country.

That’s thanks to Alternatives to Detention, an ICE-run program that uses ankle monitors and phone apps to track immigrants and asylum seekers as they await their court hearings. The government claims this is a more humane and cost-effective alternative to detention, though critics argue that neither is necessary. The program relies primarily on non-removable GPS ankle bracelets and a phone app that tracks users’ locations and requires frequent check-ins with ICE agents by using facial recognition technology.

Nationally, more than 185,000 people are enrolled in Alternatives to Detention, with 10% based in the Bay Area, more than any other region in the country. With Trump back in office, it remains to be seen whether the administration will leverage this digital monitoring infrastructure to pursue its immigration policy objectives.

As of February 2025, there were more than 20,200 immigrants enrolled in ICE’s electronic monitoring program in the San Francisco office, which covers the entire Bay Area, according to the most up-to-date data from the agency. Most—92%—are monitored through the Smartlink app, which combines location tracking with facial recognition for identity verification. 

The program recently introduced “wrist-worn” technology, which pairs real-time location tracking with facial recognition software, direct messaging and push notifications on a wrist monitor, according to ICE. More than 500 people locally are using the wristbands, which cannot be removed. 

On average, immigrants in the Bay Area spend 659 days, or nearly two years, under electronic monitoring. What happens to all this data? That’s still an open question. It took ICE nearly twenty years to release a privacy policy for Alternatives to Detention as required by law. Technology experts I spoke to said the agency’s assessment raises more questions than answers, particularly about whether the data it collects via the ankle monitors and smartphone apps are shared with other agencies or third-party companies.

The ankle monitors and Smartlink app are operated by BI Incorporated, a company originally known for developing cattle-tracking technology. Today, it’s a subsidiary of GEO Group, one of the country’s largest private prison operators. GEO runs four detention centers in California, and since Trump won the election in November, its stock has more than doubled.

A digital prison?

Critics argue these programs turn entire neighborhoods into Orwellian digital prisons, where immigrants live under constant surveillance. 

What does it mean for a region when so many of its residents are placed under government surveillance? How does it change our urban landscapes and influence the ways immigrant communities move through the Bay Area, especially in the current political climate? How does it affect asylum seekers—some of whom fled authoritarian regimes where they were under surveillance, only to find themselves monitored once again?

These are not abstract questions. Cities like San Pablo have significantly expanded their surveillance and policing infrastructure in recent years, investing in technologies like traffic cameras, license plate readers and drones, tracking data on a population that includes large numbers of immigrants.

We plan to dig deeper into the scale and impact of this kind of surveillance in the East Bay in future reporting. If you have thoughts, insights or personal stories, I’d love to hear from you. Reach me at ehellerstein@eltimpano.org.  

That’s all for now—thanks for reading, and see you next week!

P.S.: Thank you to our friends at The Latino Newsletter for highlighting our Weekly Dispatch! You can check out my recent Q&A with Julio Ricardo Varela here.

Ear to the Ground

El Tímpano’s text messaging (SMS) service reaches 5,600 Spanish-speaking immigrants across the Bay Area. Since the election, multiple subscribers have written in to share their fears about the Trump administration and ask questions about the Department of Homeland Security’s new registry for undocumented immigrants. Here are a few of their questions.

We are concerned about everything that is happening with this new president! What and how will this registration of all immigrants be done? What’s that for? Is it to keep a closer surveillance on us and to be able to detain us more quickly?

¡Estamos preocupados por todo lo que está pasando con este nuevo presidente!¿Qué y cómo se hará eso de la registración de todos los inmigrantes qué quieren hacer, para qué es eso? ¿Será para tenerlos más vigilados, y poder detenernos más rápido?

— Concord resident

I want information or some guidance on the administration’s new order regarding the registration of undocumented immigrants..

Quiero información o alguna orientación sobre la nueva orden de la administración respecto al registro de inmigrantes indocumentados.

—Brentwood resident

What can we do regarding the discussion of registering undocumented people?

¿Qué podemos hacer sobre lo que se está hablando de registrar las personas que no tenemos documentos?

—Berkeley resident

• Mass Deportations Could Upend California’s Elder Care Industry. The New York Times has a deep dive examining how mass deportations could disrupt industries that rely heavily on immigrant labor—including elder care. In California, the outlet reports, nearly half of all workers caring for seniors in homes are immigrants, making the state especially vulnerable to potential labor shortages if Trump’s immigration crackdown materializes. Nationwide, immigrants make up the vast majority of the 5 million workers caring for seniors, according to the Times. Hollowing out this labor force just as the aging U.S. boomer population is projected to significantly increase the demand for elderly care could have serious consequences. A mass exodus of immigrant caregivers could drive up costs and create severe staffing shortages, leaving families struggling to find affordable care for aging loved ones.  

• With tax season around the corner, some Bay Area immigrants are on edge. As tax season approaches, many undocumented immigrants are wondering whether the information they provide could be used against them. Millions of undocumented workers file taxes every year, as is required by federal tax law of anyone who earns an income in the U.S., using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. But, as KQED reports, some Bay Area immigrants are increasingly worried that their tax information could be shared with immigration authorities. These concerns stem in part from recent Washington Post reporting that the Department of Homeland Security requested access to the addresses, phone numbers and emails of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants. While the IRS ultimately rejected the request, the news has heightened fears about data privacy and how tax filings could intersect with immigration enforcement.

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