Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
ICE is using a Palantir app called ELITE that maps potential deportation targets from HHS and other address data
404 Media reported on January 15, 2026 that the tool builds a dossier and an address confidence score for each person, drawing on records collected for other purposes.
What happened
Palantir built ELITE for ICE, a tool that puts potential deportation targets on a map, produces a dossier on each person and scores how confident it is in their current address. 404 Media reported it on January 15, 2026, from internal ICE material, procurement records and sworn testimony by an ICE official. The score rests on the source and recency of the data.
ICE used ELITE to find areas where many of the people it might detain were concentrated. A user guide that 404 Media later published names the address sources: the Department of Health and Human Services, USCIS and “CLEAR,” which DHS sources identified as Thomson Reuters’ database.
An ICE official testified that the tool was used before a sweep that detained more than 30 people. Sen. Ron Wyden condemned the app. The testimony and the user guide are the first public account of how the tool is used on the ground, rather than how it was sold.
Who benefited
ICE gained a tool that turns fused federal records into places to look for people. It can pick the neighborhoods to search by where the most possible targets are. Palantir, which built the tool, deepened its role as the agency’s data vendor.
Who wanted something
ICE commissioned the tool as part of its Palantir contracts, and an ICE official described its use under oath. The agency wanted one system that fuses government data into a single map of where the people it is looking for are likely to be.
Who lost out
People in the neighborhoods ELITE flags are searched for on the strength of an address prediction and a confidence score. Records collected through a health program feed the address data. Nothing in the reporting shows that anyone scored can see the score or contest it.
Why it matters
Records collected for health coverage are now being used to choose where ICE looks for people. The reporting ties a Palantir product to a specific sweep, in which more than 30 people were detained. The data fusion is no longer a plan; an ICE official has described it under oath.
Sources 404 Media404 Media404 MediaBusiness & Human Rights Resource Centre