![]() People feel like they are criminals, they feel like they’ve been sentenced,” says Zota. “It has been described as like a constant harassment. This costs immigrants in ATD an average $7.29 per day, according to ICE. And others must periodically check in with a SmartLINK officer and an ICE officer, she says. Others have to send photos of themselves indicating their location. Some immigrants must answer their phone anytime they receive a call on the SmartLINK app. Sejal Zota, co-founder and legal director at Just Futures Law, calls the program “a digital prison.” She says immigrants monitored under ATD are asked to follow different, and sometimes inconsistent, protocols. ICE first used SmartLINK in 2004 to track a small subset of undocumented immigrants who were not in detention. ![]() ![]() The program allows the government to track immigrants with a variety of different technologies, including ankle monitors with GPS tracking, “telephonic reporting,” or by use of the SmartLINK app, which is either installed on a personal smartphone or installed on a locked device. Still, the rapid expansion of the ATD program has immigrant communities and advocates sounding the alarm. That number includes asylum seekers, those who have received a deportation order, and those have a pending case before U.S. In August 2020, more than 3.3 million people were on ICE’s non-detained docket. The record number of people now enrolled in ATD make up a relatively small portion of the millions of immigrants who are not detained by ICE. What is ICE’s Alternative to Detention Program? GEO Group declined to comment on the record about either ATD or SmartLINK and referred TIME to ICE. It’s currently above 18,000.Īn ICE spokesperson would not comment on the new litigation, and issued a statement saying that a “lack of comment should not be construed as agreement with, or stipulation to, any allegations.” The spokesperson added that the agency is committed to protecting privacy rights, and the civil rights and liberties of those in the ATD program. “So we don’t necessarily expect the detention numbers to go down just because Alternatives To Detention is increasing.” Since the start of the Biden Administration, the number of immigrants in ICE detention centers has ranged from a high of 27,217 and a low of 13,258. “ is more of a mechanism for to expand their ability to monitor immigrants who are in the country,” Kocher says. The number of immigrants in ATD has expanded, while the number of people in immigrant detention facilities has fluctuated, he says. But it’s not a direct one-to-one correlation, says Austin Kocher, assistant professor and researcher at TRAC. On April 14, three immigrant advocacy organizations-Just Futures Law, Mijente, and Community Justice Exchange-filed a lawsuit against ICE, calling on the agency to provide information showing what data are being collected on individuals in the ATD program, and how that data are used, either by the government or by the for-profit contractors that operate the technology.Īs the number of immigrants monitored under ATD has ticked up, the number in ICE detention centers has declined. ![]() Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) to reduce or end the use of immigrant detention centers, they say the ATD program raises a fresh set of concerns about immigrants’ privacy and civil rights. While immigrant advocates have long called on U.S. Since President Joe Biden took office, the number of immigrants in the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program has more than doubled, reflecting the Administration’s embrace of new surveillance technology as a tool to limit reliance on government-funded detention centers. ![]() immigration courts have been placed in a federal government tracking program, according federal data released April 14. More than 216,000 people with pending cases before U.S. ![]()
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