ICE Let Fresh Hires Tap Palantir’s ELITE App Before Background Checks Were Cleared

When the Trump administration’s winter‑time immigration crackdown hit Minneapolis, a sleek new app started popping up on the phones of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Palantir, the CIA‑backed data‑mining firm, called it ELITE – short for Enhanced Lead Identification and Targeting – and it promised to turn raw government records into tidy dossiers, complete with confidence scores about how likely a target was to be an undocumented immigrant.

Sounds handy, right? Except the timing was… odd. ICE was in the middle of an unprecedented hiring binge, onboarding more than 12,000 agents in a matter of months. Training was trimmed, badges and firearms were handed out quickly, and – according to Reuters – many of those new officers never finished their background screenings before hitting the streets.

One ICE deportation officer, who asked to stay anonymous, told us, “Some of these guys should’ve never been hired, let alone have access to the information on ELITE.” The app, they said, was pre‑installed on every issued phone, and could be opened without waiting for a full security clearance.

What does ELITE actually do? Its internal user guide lists a dozen data sources, ranging from immigration case files and criminal records to court rulings and even personal addresses. In other words, it aggregates a lot of what the government classifies as PII – personally identifiable information – about both non‑citizens and U.S. citizens.

Under the E‑Government Act of 2002, any federal system that collects, stores, or shares PII must undergo a privacy impact assessment (PIA) and publish the findings. The idea is to surface privacy risks, set safeguards, and give the public a chance to see what’s being gathered about them. Yet, as former DHS chief privacy officer Mary Ellen Callahan pointed out, the DHS privacy office never released a PIA for ELITE. “The privacy office has only published one PIA all year,” she said, contrasting that with her own record of 228 PIAs in three and a half years.

Legal scholars and privacy experts aren’t thrilled. Clare Garvie, a privacy lawyer at NYU’s Policing Project, warned that “PIAs are an essential component of transparency… If ICE can’t fulfill this prerequisite, I lack confidence in its ability to use the tool in a lawful, privacy‑protective manner.” The absence of a PIA means there’s no publicly documented mitigation for errors, no clear retention schedule, and no accountability framework if the data is misused.

Adding to the unease, five ICE officials from different regions confirmed that officers who haven’t cleared background checks are still on the job, some of them hired almost a year ago. The ELITE app, they said, is a “first‑day” tool – the very thing that lets a rookie officer start pulling names, locations, and personal histories before the agency has fully vetted them.

Palantir and ICE have declined to comment for this story. Meanwhile, civil‑rights groups are urging Congress to enforce stricter oversight of the agency’s data‑use practices, and to make sure that any system handling sensitive personal data gets the privacy review it legally requires before being rolled out.

In short, a high‑tech surveillance app meant to streamline deportations has, at least for now, slipped through the usual safety nets. Whether that will translate into more efficient enforcement or deeper infringements on privacy remains to be seen.