ICE agents admitted they had a daily arrest quota and an app to track migrants.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Oregon used a specially designed app to identify areas and people to target. During operations, they were tasked with meeting their daily arrest quota, writes The Guardian.

Details emerged during a federal trial in which officers were required to answer questions under oath. These depositions provide a rare glimpse into the agency's inner workings, which are not generally known to the public.

A class action lawsuit filed by the Innovation Law Lab, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on immigrant rights, challenged ICE's practice of detaining people without warrants and probable cause. Advocates claimed this tactic led to widespread racial profiling and unconstitutional arrests. A federal judge agreed with the plaintiffs, ruling that warrantless arrests are generally prohibited in Oregon.

On the subject: ICE has created a large-scale system to track migrants: how it works

Testimony given at a hearing in December included a remarkable admission from one ICE employee about how daily arrest targets were being implemented at the local level. This contradicted repeated statements by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials who claimed that officers had no quotas. Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller publicly stated that the administration's goal was 3000 arrests per day. Furthermore, this hearing appears to have been the first time ICE disclosed in court that officers use the Elite app during operations.

At the hearing, an ICE agent identified only as JB testified that his team was verbally ordered to make eight arrests a day.

The JB team consisted of 9-12 officers and was part of DHS Operation Black Rose, launched last fall in Portland. According to DHS, by mid-December, it had resulted in over 1200 arrests. A goal of eight arrests per day per team translates to a potential total of approximately 50 arrests daily across Oregon, according to the Innovation Law Lab.

When the plaintiffs' attorney asked JB whether he had complied with this standard, the federal prosecutor objected to the use of the word "standard," but the judge overruled the objection.

JB replied, "I made as many arrests as I could as long as it was legal."

JB's testimony concerned an October 30 ICE operation in Woodburn, a town south of Portland that has a large farmworker population.

The JB group stopped a van carrying field workers heading to work early in the morning, smashed the car's windows and detained all seven people inside.

JB reported that officers began the day by monitoring an apartment complex. He said the location was chosen in part based on information from Elite. JB explained that Elite is a "new app" issued to ICE agents. He described it as "kind of like Google Maps" and shows how many people with "immigration connections" are believed to be in a given area. Another officer explained that "connection" can refer to any past contact with immigration authorities, even naturalized U.S. citizens.

According to JB, Elite helped officers identify areas with higher population density, meaning they were more likely to locate individuals for arrest. Another agent described an apartment complex in Woodburn as "an area with a high number of potential targets." JB said he didn't know how the app generated its leads, noting that it "receives data from a variety of sources."

JB acknowledged that the information from Elite may be inaccurate. He said employees should conduct additional verification of the data received.

Near the apartment complex, they checked the license plates of the vehicles and became interested in the van after a search of their databases revealed that the owner of the vehicle may be an immigrant in the United States without authorization.

JB said the group decided to follow the van after it left, although officers did not confirm whether the driver was the vehicle's registered owner. JB said he found it suspicious that the driver was making multiple stops to pick up passengers. The fact that the occupants of the vehicle spoke only Spanish during the stop, he said, confirmed that they were transporting or harboring people "who should not be in the United States."

Elite wasn't the only app ICE used during the operation. Another agency agent reported that during the arrests, he photographed a farmworker in a car, known in the case file as MJMA—the primary complainant in the case. The agent checked her face using Mobile Fortify, a DHS facial recognition app. The app returned a match, but the agent stated, "I wasn't sure it was her."

MJMA entered the US last year on a valid temporary visa. However, JB Group erroneously reported in the arrest paperwork that the farmworker had entered the US illegally. Furthermore, the judge noted, the report incorrectly stated that the van stop was "consensual." MJMA was taken to a detention center in Washington state, after which ICE released her without explanation, leaving her to make her own way home to Oregon.

Federal Judge Mustafa Kasubhai sharply criticized ICE's actions in Woodburn, noting that Elite could be generating inaccurate information and leading ICE agents to target people legally in the United States. He stated that JB's claims about transporting undocumented immigrants were "baseless" and "irrelevant"—ICE agents targeted the area simply because it was home to many agricultural workers.

Among the detained field workers were at least 35 people arrested by ICE that day in the Woodburn area, the judge noted. He added: "To meet the President's mandate of 3000 immigration arrests per day nationwide, ICE agents descended on Oregon communities and arrested large numbers of Oregon residents in October 2025 with little regard for whether those arrests complied with the law."

"Valuable Targets"

Many details about Elite's functionality and its use by ICE remain unclear. However, in January, the technology news site 404 Media reported that the app was developed by Palantir, a data analytics firm that has contracts with the DHS and the Department of Defense.

Internal ICE documents reviewed by 404 Media indicate that Elite generated a map of potential deportation targets, created profiles on individuals, and assigned a "confidence score" to their addresses. Citing a user manual, 404 Media reported that Elite stands for Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement. According to the tool, it identifies "high-priority targets" and features a "geospatial lead search" tab for displaying targets on a map.

Palantir has said it is only a "data processor" and does not play an active role in how its clients collect data or how they use that information.

Innovation Law Lab Executive Director Steven Manning said testimony in the class action lawsuit shows how officers' desire to meet arrest targets can push them to potentially violate people's rights.

He cited ICE's forced detention of Juanita Avila, a U.S. lawful permanent resident and longtime Oregon resident, as an example of how regulations can lead to racial profiling. Avila, who filed a written statement as part of the lawsuit, was stopped and thrown to the ground, despite having a green card in her pocket.

Manning said: "She was just driving her van. Why was she stopped? Apparently because of the colour of her skin."

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Manning said ICE is using Elite to create an "electronic surveillance network" designed to circumvent the Fourth Amendment, the protection against unreasonable searches.

Nelly Garcia Orjuela, a staff attorney at the Innovation Law Lab, said the Elite revelations demonstrate "another layer of surveillance and the depth of information ICE has." She added that agents use this data for more than just targeting people with serious criminal histories, as DHS claims.

"They make decisions that allow them to circumvent the law and terrorize the most vulnerable communities," she concluded.

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