Internal Slack messages reviewed by WIRED reveal growing frustration within Palantir over its relationship with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and particularly ICE’s enforcement and investigative teams. In response, Palantir’s privacy and civil liberties team published an update on the company’s internal wiki detailing its work on federal immigration enforcement, arguing that “technology is making a difference in reducing risks while enabling targeted outcomes.”
Discussing Preeti’s murder in a Saturday thread on Slack, Palantir workers questioned both the ethics and business logic of continuing the company’s work with ICE.
“Our involvement with ICE has been pretty much swept under the rug internally under Trump2. We need an understanding of our involvement here,” one person wrote.
“Can Palantir Put Any Pressure on ICE?”. Wrote the second one. “I’ve read stories of people seeking asylum without an order to leave the country, without a criminal record, and without constant checks with authorities. There’s literally no reason to be detained. Surely we’re not helping that happen?”
The discussion was held in a company-wide Slack channel dedicated to general world news coverage. The messages seen by WIRED received dozens of “+1” emoji reactions from other workers, supporting requests for more information about Palantir’s relationship with ICE. Palantir did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.
On Sunday, Palantir’s global director of privacy and civil liberties engineering Courtney Bowman answered questions from employees by linking to the company’s internal wiki describing its DHS and immigration enforcement contracts. The post — last updated, when WIRED reviewed it, on January 24 by Akash Jain, whose LinkedIn lists him as chief technology officer and president of Palantir USG, which works with U.S. government agencies — says that in April 2025, Palantir will begin a six-month pilot supporting ICE in three key areas: “enforcement operations prioritization and targeting,” “self-deportation tracking,” and “Immigration Lifecycle Operations focuses on logistics planning and execution.”
Those actions fall in line with a $30 million contract ICE awarded to Palantir in April for a platform called ImmigrationOS. According to contract information provided by DHS at the time, the system would give ICE “near real-time visibility” to self-deportees and help the agency identify and select whom to deport. According to Palantir’s wiki, the pilot for these services was renewed in September for an additional six-month period, and self-deportation tracking “is being incorporated into work on enforcement operations prioritization and targeting.”
According to the Wiki, Palantir has also launched a new pilot with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to help authorities “identify fraudulent benefit submissions.” The Trump administration has used fraud allegations to justify an increased ICE presence in cities such as Minneapolis.
“Field operations focusing on internal immigration enforcement are growing, and becoming increasingly visible, drawing attention to Palantir’s involvement with ICE,” says Wiki. “We believe our work can have a real and positive impact on ICE enforcement operations by providing data to officers and agents to make more accurate, informed decisions. We are committed to giving our partners the best software for the job, while acknowledging the reputational risk we face when supporting immigration enforcement operations.”
Wiki acknowledges “increasing reporting about U.S. citizens being implicated and arrested in enforcement actions, as well as reports of racial profiling allegedly being implemented in the detention of some U.S. citizens,” but argues that Palantir’s clients at ICE are “committed to avoiding unlawful/unnecessary targeting, apprehension, and detention of U.S. citizens wherever and whenever possible.”
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