Number of Immigrants on ICE's GPS Ankle Monitors Declines, SmartLINK Numbers Skyrocket
Electronic monitoring, or what ICE refers to as ‘alternatives to detention’, has long been associated with GPS ankle monitors, those clunky black boxes that many immigrants are required to wear strapped to their ankles.
But that is changing—and quickly.
According to the latest data released by ICE in May, GPS ankle monitor usage by the agency is now in a pattern of steady decline that started at the beginning of the calendar year.
The total number of immigrants on GPS monitors is approaching 20,000, down from 30,000 in January and 35,000 last August.
The decline in the number of immigrants on GPS ankle monitors is not compensated for in the number of immigrants on telephonic reporting, another type of electronic monitoring that ICE has been using for many years although it has received far less attention.
In a 2014 report, the Government Accountability Office described telephonic reporting as follows:1
An alien enrolled in the telephonic reporting voice verification program will receive an automated telephone call at periodic intervals, which will require the alien to call the system back within a certain time frame; the computer will recognize the biometric voiceprint and register the “check-in”. It is not the purpose of the voice verification system to locate an alien.
After months of steady decline in ICE’s use of telephonic reporting, ICE slightly increased its use of this form of monitoring at the beginning of the year, but not enough to make up for a decline in GPS usage.
The real action, of course, revolves around SmartLINK, which continues to see truly incredible growth.
In a recent report, Aly Panjwani, writing in a report for Just Futures Law and Mijente, explained that SmartLINK works like this:2
Individuals are required to provide their own phones for the application for fixed and random check-ins and to communicate with ERO, upload photos of documents, request services, confirm appointments, and provide updates on court proceedings. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some individuals have also been required to video conference with their enforcement officers for check-ins.
News outlet La Prensa interviewed a man on SmartLINK, who described his personal experience of the app as follows:3
"Every Thursday at 11 am I have to send a picture of my face to immigration," Danny Sanchez, a Venezuelan attorney who has requested US asylum and who ICE is being monitored via SmartLink, told EFE. "However, for others their telephone rings every little while for them to post their photo. It can be in the morning, at night or at any hour of the day, and they're always scared to be without their phone," he said.
SmartLINK has seen steady growth since 2020, but a real surge of growth has happened since the start of this year, with SmartLINK enrollments doubling since January, from 100,000 to nearly 200,000. SmartLINK truly is the future of ICE’s electronic monitoring program.
With these changes underway in ICE’s so-called Alternatives to Detention program, it’s important to step back and consider how we think about this program. Despite ICE calling this the “Alternatives to Detention” program, it is not accurate to think about it as an alternative.
In the next post, I will explain four pieces of empirical evidence that, whatever your view is on electronic monitoring, illustrate why we should avoid calling this an “alternative” to detention.
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Alternatives to Detention: Improved Data Collection and Analyses Needed to Better Assess Program Effectiveness (https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-15-26).
ICE Digital Prisons (https://notechforice.com/resources/).
Mobile app: controversial new way to monitor undocumented migrants in US (https://www.laprensalatina.com/mobile-app-controversial-new-way-to-monitor-undocumented-migrants-in-us/)