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ICE Deployed Palantir Targeting App to Officers Before Completing Background Checks

Confirmed1 source · Sep 3, 2026

During an expedited hiring surge in early 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave new employees access to the ELITE app—a Palantir-built tool drawing on sensitive databases including addresses, criminal histories, and immigration records—without requiring completed security clearances.

ICE Deployed Palantir Targeting App to Officers Before Completing Background Checks
Image via The Intercept

What happened

ICE added over 12,000 employees through an expedited hiring surge that cut training curriculum, allowing thousands to work without cleared background checks. New ICE deportation officers were issued phones with the ELITE app pre-installed, an AI-driven tool created by Palantir that analyzes data from multiple government databases and produces confidence scores and location mappings for immigration targets. Five ICE officials across different regions confirmed that deportation officers without completed background checks—some hired nearly a year prior—continue to access ELITE in all their jurisdictions. The ELITE app draws from a dozen sources including addresses, criminal histories, immigration records, court rulings, and other personally identifiable information (PII) about both immigrants and U.S. citizens.

Context

The 2002 E-Government Act requires government agencies to conduct and publish privacy impact assessments for technology that collects, maintains, or disseminates PII. No such assessment has been published for ELITE by the DHS privacy office, despite the department's own AI catalog acknowledging the app involves PII. The DHS website lists a 2019 privacy assessment for ICE's Enforcement Integrated Database—one of ELITE's component systems—but this predates ELITE's acquisition and does not describe the app's data sources, AI analysis, or inferences. Privacy experts and former DHS officials identify this gap as a critical vulnerability: the lack of transparency prevents public understanding of data collection scope, retention, usage permissions, and remedies for misuse. Allowing non-vetted personnel to access powerful targeting tools and sensitive databases creates potential civil liberties risks and national security concerns.