Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
ICE awards Palantir $30 million to build ImmigrationOS, then a second $29.9 million order
The sole-source award builds a platform for targeting, self-deportation tracking and case management. An advocacy tally puts ICE’s bill to the company near $277 million.
What happened
On April 11, 2025, ICE awarded Palantir Technologies a roughly $30 million sole-source award to build ImmigrationOS. It was structured as a modification to a 2022 contract. The agency described three parts: targeting and enforcement prioritization, self-deportation tracking and immigration lifecycle management. A prototype was due September 25, 2025, with performance through September 2027.
ImmigrationOS is designed to pull from records across the government, including passport, Social Security, tax and license-plate data. It flags individuals who meet criteria the agency sets. Palantir’s position is that it provides tools and does not decide who is targeted. Privacy and labor groups sued.
On September 25, 2025, ICE added a separate $29.9 million sole-source task order for license renewals, operations and maintenance of the system. The notice was posted on SAM.gov October 10. State of Surveillance, an advocacy site, tallies cumulative payments to Palantir at about $277 million, a figure that mixes ceilings and obligations.
Who benefited
Palantir has supplied ICE case-management tools since 2014, and it now runs the system ICE uses to choose and track targets. It added the $30 million award to more than $900 million in federal awards since January 2025. Reporting noted that Stephen Miller, the administration’s chief immigration architect, held a financial stake in the company.
Who wanted something
ICE wanted one system to choose and track deportation targets. DHS leadership, carrying out the White House’s mass-deportation goals, sought a faster way to do it. Miller set the enforcement priorities the system serves. Palantir pursued the work as an extension of its decade-long relationship with ICE.
Who lost out
People whose records sit in federal databases, citizens included, are now fused into an enforcement profile without notice or a way to correct errors. Immigrants flagged by the system face detention on pattern-matching that no court has reviewed.
Why it matters
The criteria that decide who gets flagged are set inside a private vendor’s system, not in public rules. Which data goes in, what triggers a flag and what gets overlooked all carry legal consequences. The system is built by a company in which, according to reporting, the architect of the enforcement priorities held a stake.
Sources American Immigration CouncilExecutiveGovSAM.gov (primary)OrangeSlices AIAxios DenverState of Surveillance