Simmering tensions over the conduct of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minneapolis erupted into outright condemnation from multiple corners after the killing of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol officer over the weekend. One of the country’s most recognizable and influential tech companies could be caught in the crosshairs.
Earlier this month, 404 Media reported on a tracking tool employed by ICE and developed by Palantir Technologies, the Denver-based software giant. The tool, dubbed ELITE, ingests data from Medicaid’s and other government databases to generate dossiers and “leads” on people ICE believes may be deportable. The tool is part of deepening ties between the technology company and ICE.
Last year, the pair announced a $30 million contract through 2027 for Palantir to design an AI platform, called ImmigrationOS, to “track immigrants’ movements.” Neither Palantir or the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, responded to Fortune’s request for comment on how ELITE is used.
Per 404 Media’s report, ELITE works by tapping Medicaid data to help the agency identify and arrest people for deportation, mapping potential targets and providing a “confidence score” as to an individual’s current address. The tool, which builds on Palantir’s long-running role as a core data infrastructure provider for immigration enforcement, underscores how health and benefits information that many Americans assume is walled off is increasingly being repurposed for surveillance and policing.
Last year, ICE and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services signed a data-sharing agreement that would allow ICE to receive the personal data of nearly 80 million Medicaid patients. The agreement was first reported in July by the Associated Press, and documents were released earlier this month as a result of a lawsuit brought forth by 404 Media and the Freedom of the Press Foundation against DHS.
Palantir is also involved in a separate contract worth under $100,000 with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, a body that handles citizenship applications with close ties to ICE, according to documents reviewed by Fortune last December. At the time, Palantir declined to comment on the nature of the contract.
The latest controversy over Palantir’s involvement in immigration enforcement operations lands at a volatile moment for immigration policy under President Donald Trump’s second administration, which has vowed to expand deportations and lean more heavily on data-driven tools to find people believed to be in the U.S. unlawfully.
Digital rights organizations argue that Palantir’s role turns a sensitive health program into a de facto dragnet. “ICE is using a Palantir tool that uses Medicaid and other government data to stalk people for arrest,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit advocating civil liberties online, wrote in a recent analysis. The EFF wrote that the company is helping consolidate vast troves of government data into a single searchable, AI-enabled interface. The group previously asked a federal judge to block the use of Medicaid data in immigration enforcement, saying patients never consented to see their personal-health-related information repurposed for deportation cases.
Immigrant rights groups have also mobilized against prior Palantir-ICE collaborations, with movements such as the “No Tech for ICE” campaign calling for boycotts and accountability for tech companies seen to be aiding ICE, with targets including Palantir and Amazon.
As for the reports that ICE agents are using Medicaid data to track deportation targets, experts have warned that the move could have a chilling effect on health care, discouraging immigrant families from seeking adequate coverage or treatment, while also pointing out the difficulty of separating medical data by immigrants’ legal status in the U.S.
“If the data available to [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] are similar to the data researchers have access to, it is not possible to isolate immigrants who are not lawfully present in the dataset that will be shared with ICE,” KFF, a health policy research nonprofit, wrote in an analysis.
For Palantir, which has aggressively pitched its platforms to government agencies worldwide as indispensable infrastructure for everything from battlefield intelligence to tax enforcement, the backlash poses both reputational and business risks. Alex Karp, Palantir’s CEO, has previously framed these decisions around serious crime and national security concerns, but documents, media reports, and government contracts further entangle the company in civil immigration enforcement.
As of Monday, a public letter calling on tech CEOs to cancel contracts with ICE had accumulated 450 signatures from tech employees, including representatives from Palantir, Google, and OpenAI. While Palantir requires strict nondisclosure and non-disparagement agreements from its workers, 13 former employees released a letter last year criticizing the company’s actions and tightening relationship with the Trump administration.
“Big Tech, including Palantir, is increasingly complicit, normalizing authoritarianism under the guise of a ‘revolution’ led by oligarchs,” they wrote.
