The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is exploring new ways to track and control undocumented immigrants, in order to avoid further incarceration, for which it established a pilot system with the use of smartphones.
This is the SmartLink technology, which is managed by the GEO company –the same one that operates the migratory prisons– through an application on cell phones that are monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This new policy of the Government of President Joe Biden includes that ICE deliver a ‘smartphone’ to immigrants who entered the country without documents, to know where that foreigner is and call them at a certain time, considered a “curfew”.
A Fox News report confirms that the immigration agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), will deliver the telephone sets to immigrants, but the television station tried to distort the purpose of the telephone, which is surveillance, not a free service.
Questioned in this regard, the White House spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, explained that the reason for the cell phone is monitoring.
“It would be great if someone who wanted a free phone and a free monthly plan could get one… Will it be an offer for everyone or just for people who enter the country illegally?”, questioned the journalist Peter Doocy.
The spokeswoman replied to the journalist from the right-wing channel that the plan was precisely to monitor the immigrants, in order to make sure they keep their appointments in immigration court.
“Shouldn’t we be tracking migrants who cross the border irregularly?” Psaki said. “What I pointed out to you is that we have a variety of means to track people who irregularly migrate to the country to make sure that they are complying with their notice to appear obligations.”
The SmartLink system is initiated by an ICE officer, not by the immigrant, and to function requires the photograph and other personal data of the immigrant, who will be monitored all the time.