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<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gps-tracking-immigrants-ice-raids-troubles-advocates-n1042846" target="_blank">https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gps-tracking-immigrants-ice-raids-troubles-advocates-n1042846</a>
<h1 class="m_6342281861534965732m_4885837915104528038m_3958586255555363738gmail-reader-title">GPS tracking of immigrants in ICE raids troubles advocates</h1>
<div class="m_6342281861534965732m_4885837915104528038m_3958586255555363738gmail-credits m_6342281861534965732m_4885837915104528038m_3958586255555363738gmail-reader-credits">Daniella Silva - August 15, 2019<br></div>
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<div class="m_6342281861534965732m_4885837915104528038m_3958586255555363738gmail-moz-reader-content m_6342281861534965732m_4885837915104528038m_3958586255555363738gmail-line-height4 m_6342281861534965732m_4885837915104528038m_3958586255555363738gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="m_6342281861534965732m_4885837915104528038m_3958586255555363738gmail-readability-page-1" class="m_6342281861534965732m_4885837915104528038m_3958586255555363738gmail-page"><div><p>Federal
immigration authorities were able to track an undocumented Guatemalan
woman from the time she left her home in the morning and headed to work
at a food processing plant in Mississippi, to the time she left work
roughly 10 hours later.</p><p>They were able to do so because the woman
had received an ankle monitor upon being released from ICE detention,
and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials used data gleaned from
her monitor to target raids this month on her plant and six others that
led to the arrests of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/families-anguished-after-massive-ice-raids-mississippi-sweep-nearly-700-n1040546" target="_blank">nearly 700 people.</a></p><p>Unsealed
search warrants from the raid reveal that immigration authorities have
tracked such GPS data from dozens of undocumented immigrants with ankle
monitors.</p><p>Lawyers and immigration advocates told NBC News they had
not previously heard of ICE employing this tactic, which they called
“troubling” and said raised concerns about immigrants’ rights.</p><p>“It’s
troubling to us that people who are released are being tracked for
reasons that have nothing to do with whether they’re likely to appear
for their court cases or abscond,” said Judy Rabinovitz, deputy director
of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants' Rights Project.</p><p>The
search warrants for the food processing plants in Mississippi said
undocumented immigrants previously released from ICE detention
facilities on electronic monitoring were found at plants operated by all
five of the companies targeted in the operation. ICE targeted seven
facilities operated by A&B, Koch Foods, Peco Foods, PH Food and
Pearl River Foods.</p><div><div><div><div><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/acting-ice-chief-defends-raids-in-nbc-news-exclusive-interview-66026565673" target="_blank"><div><div><p></p></div></div></a></div></div></div></div><p>“I
think it raises questions about whether this is a proper use of the
ankle monitors because taken to its extreme it means they can be
monitoring every place this person goes, every person they meet with,
and that raises various privacy concerns,” Rabinovitz said.</p><p>Michelle
Lapointe, senior supervising attorney with the Southern Poverty Law
Center, said she questioned whether undocumented immigrants were being
told "about the uses to which monitors can be put toward before someone
agrees to that as a condition to their release."</p><p>"I would want to
know if all of this is disclosed to people, particularly if it's going
to be used as evidence against those people in a criminal proceeding
down the road," she said.</p><p>ICE Spokesman Bryan Cox said in an email
to NBC News that “no one is required to wear an ankle monitor; however,
when a custody determination is made based on the totality of the
circumstances in any specific case, GPS monitoring may be required as a
condition of release from custody.”</p><p>“Persons released from ICE custody subject to electronic monitoring are, in fact, subject to electronic monitoring,” he said.</p><p>ICE
Acting Director Matthew Albence said in a statement this week that
worksite enforcement operations involve “complex criminal investigations
of both employers and employees.”</p><p>He said those who “oppose” such investigations were “siding with unscrupulous businesses.”</p><p>“Our
investigation in Mississippi continues, and all parties found in
violation of law will be held accountable,” he added. “This includes
employers who profit off their crimes.”</p><p>As of Saturday, there were
more 99,349 people in ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program, which
allows some immigrants to be released from detention facilities during
their deportation cases, according to ICE data. Of those, 43,233 were
subject to GPS tracking devices, according to the data. For the New
Orleans field office, which includes Mississippi, that number was 3,588
in total, with 2,770 subject to GPS tracking, according to the data.</p><div><div><div><div><a href="https://www.today.com/video/300-families-separated-during-ice-raids-in-mississippi-65826885847" target="_blank"><div><div><p></p></div></div></a></div></div></div></div><p>Randy
Capps, director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy
Institute, said that only in the last five years has the U.S. had such a
large number of monitored, nondetained immigrants.</p><p>“The fact they
have such a large monitored population now is something relatively new,
as well as the phenomenon of ICE being able to track a substantial
population of border crossers and figure out what they’re doing,’ she
said.</p><p>In the search warrant for Peco Foods, ICE said that queries
of immigrants enrolled in an alternatives to detention program showed 21
undocumented immigrants worked at its processing plants in Mississippi,
14 of which were at a plant in Canton.</p><p>The warrant goes on to
list specific undocumented immigrants that it said were in the ankle
monitor program whose movements were tracked to the raided site.</p><p>In
one example, ICE listed the Guatemalan woman, who was first encountered
by immigration authorities at the border in 2016 and was later released
from custody with an electronic ankle monitor and went to live in
Mississippi.</p><div><div></div></div><span>Handcuffed
female workers are escorted into a bus for transportation to a
processing center following a raid by U.S. immigration officials at a
Koch Foods Inc., plant in Morton, Mississippi on Aug. 7.</span><span>Rogelio V. Solis / AP</span><p>“Queries
of historical GPS coordinates associated with” her ankle monitor
“revealed numerous daily captured coordinates located” within the PECO
Foods Canton processing plant. ICE added the GPS coordinate showed the
woman went to the processing plant “multiple times a week” and remained
on that property for about 10 hours on those days. The woman did not
have employment authorization in the U.S., according to ICE.</p><p>In a
search warrant for Koch Foods, ICE said queries of immigrants in an
alternatives to detection program showed 16 undocumented immigrants who
in 2018 were working at the company’s processing plants in Mississippi
and that as of late July, 21 immigrants have or were working at the
plant in Morton.</p><p>In one example, the warrant lists a Guatemalan
woman who was encountered by immigration authorities in June 2018 and
was eventually released from ICE custody with an ankle monitor. GPS
coordinates of the woman’s ankle monitor “revealed numerous daily
captured coordinates” with the Morton Koch Foods plant, according to
ICE.</p><p>The warrant also said the woman traveled from her house to
the plant “multiple times a week” and stayed at the plant for about
eight to 10 hours. ICE said that the woman also did not have employment
authorization.</p><p>In the warrants, ICE also listed some undocumented
immigrants with ankle monitors who had previously told the agency they
had worked at those companies.</p><p>Other tactics ICE used in the
operations were confidential informants, workers who had told them they
worked at the plants and evidence of false documentation.</p><p>Oscar
Chacón, co-founder and executive director of the Alianza Americas, a
Latino immigrant advocacy group, said such a surveillance tactic
“further stigmatizes” immigrants who wear ankle monitors.</p><p>Chacón
said he believed the use of the worksite raids and of tracking ankle
monitor data as a tactic was “part of a larger effort to use fear as a
way of promoting the idea that people may feel so trapped” they abandon
their immigration cases or leave the U.S.</p><p>Marshall Goff, an
immigration attorney in Mississippi representing some of the families
affected by the raids, said people in their communities were still
frightened.</p><p>“It’s been scary,” he said. “A lot of people are still
frightened right now, and they’re afraid to ever leave their homes,
really to do anything.”</p></div></div></div>
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