Immigrant advocates and former BI employees worry such monitoring may result in longer, even permanent, surveillance.Ice did not respond with an on-the-record comment by the time of publication but said Isap was effective in ensuring people complied with release conditions, court hearings and final orders of removal. BI’s technology was one aspect of the program, Ice said, and was effectively deployed in support of case management efforts.
though former BI employees had come across people wearing a monitor for seven to 10 years. Some people in the program transition from wearing a monitor to regular check-ins on the SmartLink app until their hearing – a period that could take years.
Scott spent the little time she did have with each person on the basics: ensuring they knew when their court date was and that they complied with the level of supervision they were assigned. At least seven former employees said they were often discouraged from or were too constrained by their caseloads to provide immigrants with tailored help. They said case managers generally were in charge of keeping track of between 125 to 300 people at once, leaving them little time to do much beyond ensuring the ankle monitors didn’t run out of battery or that people were checking into the app regularly.
but two former case managers said the lists at times included just a handful of organizations that could not handle the hundreds of immigrants being referred to them. A list the Guardian reviewed, distributed in October 2021, included six organizations – two of which only represented people in detention.