ICE, CBP Agents Are Scanning People’s Faces on Streets To Verify Citizenship
Big Brother’s gaze has gone mobile — and now, your face could be next in line.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been filmed using facial recognition apps on smartphones to scan the faces of ordinary Americans — including bicyclists, drivers, and people sitting on their porches — in real time to “verify citizenship.”
Videos circulating online show federal agents deploying the technology across several U.S. cities. In one clip filmed by a teenager, a Border Patrol agent wearing a baseball cap and neck gaiter stops two young men on bicycles.
“You don’t got no ID?” the agent asks the teen recording. When the boy replies that he was born in the United States, the agent turns to a colleague and says, “Can you do facial?”
A second officer then steps forward, orders the youth to “face the sun,” and holds a smartphone camera inches from his face for several seconds before asking him to confirm his name.
In another recording, shot from inside a car, ICE agents wearing Enforcement and Removal Operations vests surround a driver.
“I’m an American citizen, so leave me alone,” the driver says.
This is insane….what is the facial recognition app the ICE Nazis are using….is this Palantir? pic.twitter.com/Xc1wPJSDGO
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) October 27, 2025
“Alright, we just got to verify that,” an officer responds. “If you could take your hat off, it would be a lot quicker. I’m going to run your information.” The officer then points a smartphone camera at the driver’s face while other agents look on.
Privacy advocates say the new practice represents a chilling escalation of government surveillance.
“The growing use of face recognition by ICE shows us two things,” said Matthew Guariglia, senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “First, we should have banned government use of facial recognition when we had the chance because it’s dangerous and invasive. And second, any pretense that ICE is operating in a precise or restrained way should be left in the dust.”
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), agents are using a tool known as Mobile Fortify — an app that scans faces against a massive database of more than 200 million images, pulling data from the State Department, FBI, CBP, and state agencies. The app returns information such as names, birth dates, alien numbers, and deportation records.
Critics warn that this technology gives federal agents sweeping power to override personal documentation.
“ICE officials have told us that a biometric match from Mobile Fortify is considered a definitive determination of a person’s immigration status,” said Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee. “An ICE officer may even disregard evidence of U.S. citizenship — including a birth certificate — if the app says the person is an alien.”
Civil liberties experts are drawing parallels between this new surveillance practice and the post-9/11 expansion of government power.
“Just like the Patriot Act justified indefinite detention and warrantless wiretaps as ‘temporary’ security measures, Washington is again sliding down a slope where civil liberties are quietly sacrificed in the name of public safety and border control,” one analyst noted.
As ICE and CBP continue to expand the use of biometric technology, watchdogs warn that ordinary Americans — not just immigrants — are increasingly finding themselves under the government’s digital microscope
