The phrase “Catch and revoke” might seem ripped from a dystopian novel, but it’s how Secretary of State Marco Rubio describes the Trump management’s new one-strike visa cancellation policy aimed at foreign students.According to a State Department spokesperson,visa interviews will involve “full social media vetting,” and this vetting will be ongoing throughout a student’s stay in the U.S.

In a recent episode of The Intercept Briefing, host Akela Lacy spoke with anthropologist Sophia Goodfriend and Chris Gelardi, a reporter for New York Focus who investigates surveillance and the criminal legal system. They discussed how AI and surveillance technologies are being used to suppress dissent on college campuses and to facilitate the deportation of immigrants across the country.

According to Goodfriend, “In the past few months, as we see the expansion of government surveillance, the crackdown of ICE on both legal residents and undocumented peopel in this country, we see these technologies lending a veneer of algorithmic efficiency to increasingly draconian policies.”

The Expanding Surveillance Network

“Anything that the state police funnels to the feds is instantly available to pretty much any ICE agent,”

This effort is supported by a surprising number of companies. Goodfriend notes, “To enforce all of that and to bolster those efforts are a host of different kinds of both small AI startups, of data brokers, of large tech conglomerates like Meta, OpenAI, Palantir, and the like. So it is really this kind of enormous dragnet of surveillance that’s bolstered by the tech industry that’s increasingly aligned with the Trump administration.”

The use of surveillance extends beyond college campuses, with these technologies also being deployed against immigrant communities nationwide.

Digital Footprints and Deportation

Every digital trace now has the potential to be used as evidence in deportation proceedings.Social media posts, location data, facial recognition from public events, and even routine traffic stops are fed into large databases. Gelardi points out that state police gang databases, which are known for their inaccuracies, are a particularly concerning source of details. “I think all evidence suggests that these are very under-regulated and that they operate in a way where they’re really ripe for garbage data and inaccuracies,” he stated, mentioning instances of children under 5 being listed in some gang databases.

Gelardi explains that local law enforcement inputs names into state databases, which then feed into the FBI’s national crime information center.Law enforcement at all levels can access this information via their phones. “Anything that the state police funnels to the feds is immediately available to pretty much any ICE agent,” he says.

For a deeper understanding of the tech infrastructure behind deportations and the implications of this digital crackdown, listen to the full conversation on The Intercept Briefing, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.