ICE plans to open call center to help law enforcement locate unaccompanied minors | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to open a new call center to help law enforcement track unaccompanied immigrant children.
Accordingly In the homeland security department’s Request for Information (RFI) notice released this week, ICE cited an “urgent need to establish and maintain” a call center equipped with “data-enabled technology.”
The agency said the center’s goal is to “support joint encounters in the field … focusing on locating unaccompanied alien children.”
The facility, planned to open in Nashville, Tennessee, will operate 24 hours a day and is expected to handle 6,000 to 7,000 calls per day. The document did not specify why Nashville was chosen for the call center. ICE anticipates the center will be open by March and reach full operational capacity by June.
In the RFI, ICE also asked potential contractors to outline what type of “enabling technology” they would propose to “integrate partner and stranger data into our systems to maximize call efficiency and reduce call time.”
In response to the Guardian’s request for comment, Homeland Security Deputy Minister Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement, without providing any details: “Your reporting is inaccurate.”
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In addition to the planned call center, CoreCivic Inc, the nation’s second-largest private prison operator, is headquartered in Nashville. The company has reported strong financial earnings since Donald Trump took office in January, reporting earnings of $538.2 million in the second quarter of this year, up 9.8% from the same period last year.
Increased profits for private prison companies and tech firms like Palantir, which recently secured new investment $30 million contract The agreement with ICE to create a database aimed at streamlining detentions and deportations comes at a time when immigration raids are increasing across the country. These actions sparked fierce backlash from the public, Democratic lawmakers, and civil rights groups.
Reports of the planned ICE call center come as the Trump administration revives the practice of family separation in its effort to deport millions, according to multiple cases reviewed by the Guardian. Immigration lawyers and former officials say the move is intended to pressure immigrants and asylum seekers to leave the United States voluntarily.
Meanwhile, in a memo obtained by the Guardian last month, the Trump administration laid out plans to offer immigrant children $2,500 in “one-off resettlement assistance grants” in exchange for deporting themselves.
This latest tension dates back to policies from Trump’s first term. “zero tolerance” An approach that directs the Ministry of Justice to prosecute anyone who crosses the border without legal status. This policy led to the separation of at least 5,500 immigrant children from their parents and guardians at the US-Mexico border.
Following widespread backlash from both Democrats and Republicans, as well as the public, Trump signed an executive order in 2018 officially ending the family separation policy.
