ICE Wants $100M for New Fleet of ‘Top Secret’ Agents to Spy on Immigrants

Donald Trump’s administration plans to spend $100 million on a fleet of intelligence analysts for a previously unreported Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit designed to radically expand the agency’s espionage and surveillance work.

ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, the division responsible for arresting and deporting tens of thousands of people from the country, could hire more than 140 intelligence officers and project managers with “top secret” clearances for an “Overwatch and National Security Enforcement” unit embedded in field offices across the country.

According to the government’s request for information, ICE is expecting to hire government contractors to review data from “classified and unclassified sources.”

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Under the proposal for “Overwatch and National Security Enforcement” personnel, roughly three to five analysts would be deployed to 27 cities, including New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Miami and San Francisco, among others, along with a project manager based in Washington, D.C.

Those analysts would be expected to hold active “top secret” government clearances and possess extensive professional intelligence experience.

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ICE says it launched the Overwatch program “due to the exponential increase of threats and violence against personnel.”

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