U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has found a way to circumvent Colorado laws limiting cooperation between the federal agency and local authorities by using information from private data brokers, according toData obtained “indicates that Colorado counties may not be fully complying with the state’s 2019 law prohibiting the execution of immigration detainer requests by ICE,” the report said.
For-profit data brokers collect personal information and resell it to government and police agencies, and ICE contracted Appriss Solutions in June 2021, allowing the agency to get real-time booking data from county jails through LexisNexis Accurint Virtual Crime Center. ICE has a $22.1 million contract with LexisNexis at a national level, according to Jacinta Gonzalez of Mijente.On LexisNexis’ website, the company says they began a five-year, $3.
“They’re collecting billions of data points on millions and millions of Americans and selling them to state and local law enforcement and to ICE,” said Siena Mann of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition at a news conference Thursday of what the report called “backdoor” information-sharing pathways. “This means that a private sector company is profiting off of the sale of our communities’ data.”
ICE officials did not return a request for comment on Thursday, but the report stated that ICE officials wrote in a contract from June 2021 that “due to policy or legislative changes, ERO has experienced an increase in the number of law enforcement agencies and state or local governments that do not share information about real-time incarceration of foreign-born nationals with ICE. Therefore, it is critical to have access to Justice Intelligence services through LexisNexis’ Appriss Insights.
A restaurant worker in the San Luis Valley who spoke to The Denver Post on the condition of anonymity because of her undocumented status and fear of deportation said she, her husband and three children live in fear of being uprooted from their lives every day. The couple said they don’t know how ICE found out about their home’s location considering law enforcement is not supposed to share that information with immigration officials in Colorado.
BySajaHindi ehernandez Why do I get the dark feeling that this is not just happening in Colorado?
Conrad_Swanson BySajaHindi ehernandez Interestingly an Assembly session or two back SenadoraJulie had the opportunity to not just stop this but also stop the DMV from selling your information. Sanctuary voted in, DMV (a R bill) voted down.