ICE’s digital dragnet expands to 183,000 under electronic watch

NEW YORK (MNTV) — ICE’s electronic monitoring program has expanded sharply, placing an estimated 183,000 immigrants under digital supervision through ankle monitors, smartphone apps and biometric technology, according to reported agency data.

The number of GPS ankle monitors has tripled since the start of the current administration, reaching about 54,000 by August 2026, following a June 2025 directive telling officers to use GPS monitoring wherever possible. 

ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program lets immigrants stay out of physical custody while requiring monitoring and regular check-ins — a system rights advocates say increasingly functions as detention by other means, reaching into homes and workplaces. 

It includes SmartLINK, a facial-recognition and GPS check-in app run by BI Incorporated, a subsidiary of GEO Group, alongside tools that extract data from phones and run facial and fingerprint searches against government databases.

Court filings and advocacy reporting have documented cases in which check-in procedures were followed by arrests — people detained at scheduled appointments, or located at home through their monitoring data. 

The growth comes as ICE arrests hit 50,925 in August 2026, a third consecutive monthly record, even as researchers find a large share of recent enforcement has involved people with no criminal convictions or charges. 

The program is concentrated in major immigrant communities: ICE’s San Francisco field office has more than 20,000 people enrolled, with Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago each above 18,000 and New York around 10,700.

Advocates caution against removing or tampering with devices and urge people to consult an immigration attorney before ICE appointments, noting that an administrative ICE warrant — unlike a judicial warrant signed by a federal judge — does not by itself authorize agents to enter a home. 

The expansion, they argue, has become a civil-liberties issue as much as an enforcement tool, raising the question of whether release from detention has simply become another, quieter form of confinement.