U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has launched an aggressive crackdown on citizen “observers” and activists who follow agency vehicles to document enforcement actions. Under the ongoing “Operation Metro Surge,” federal agents are increasingly employing high-tech surveillance and direct intimidation to deter the public from tracking their movements, a tactic that has turned neighborhoods into high-tension zones.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently released data showing a staggering 3,300% increase in “vehicular attacks” against ICE officers over the past year. While officials cite these figures to justify a harder line against those trailing their caravans, civil rights groups argue the agency is mischaracterizing peaceful observation as criminal obstruction. In cities like Minneapolis and St. Paul, activists report being surrounded by masked agents who call them by their first names, suggesting the use of license plate readers and facial recognition apps like “ELITE” to build instant dossiers on dissenters.
The escalation has turned deadly in several instances. The January shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother killed by an ICE agent after she attempted to follow a federal caravan, has become a national flashpoint. Following her death, “constitutional observers” have formed vast networks of up to 30,000 volunteers who use encrypted apps and crowdsourced databases of “suspicious” tinted SUVs to alert immigrant communities. In response, ICE agents have been documented using “cowboy tactics,” including spraying bear spray into the vents of observers’ cars and swapping license plates with vintage or bogus ones to evade detection.
Legal experts warn that the agency is operating with a “new level of lawlessness.” Reports of agents following protesters back to their private homes and conducting retaliatory audits of businesses whose owners criticize the crackdown have surfaced in Maine and Minnesota. Privacy advocates argue that the use of mobile forensic tools to extract data from the phones of detained observers is a clear violation of First Amendment rights.
As Congress debates the “Cameras On, Masks Off” legislation intended to force federal agents to show their faces and wear body cameras, the streets remain a primary battleground. This “engagement architecture” of surveillance and counter-surveillance represents a perilous new era. With ICE’s ranks swelled by massive new funding and $50,000 signing bonuses, the agency appears prepared to maintain its “roving patrols” regardless of the growing local and legislative pushback.
