The Trump Administration has now purchased access to a commercial database for the claimed purpose of stopping ‘illegal immigration’ by monitoring people through their cell phone locations.
The Trump administration has bought access to a commercial database that maps the movements of millions of cellphones in America and is using it for immigration and border enforcement, according to people familiar with the matter and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The location data is drawn from ordinary cellphone apps, including those for games, weather and e-commerce, for which the user has granted permission to log the phone’s location.
The Department of Homeland Security has used the information to detect undocumented immigrants and others who may be entering the U.S. unlawfully, according to these people and documents.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of DHS, has used the data to help identify immigrants who were later arrested, these people said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, another agency under DHS, uses the information to look for cellphone activity in unusual places, such as remote stretches of desert that straddle the Mexican border, the people said.
The federal government’s use of such data for law enforcement purposes hasn’t previously been reported. (source)
The issue here is not migration. It is about civil rights.
Immigrants, babies, the elderly, and the poor are always an indicator of how a government plans to treat her citizens.
This action is outright disdainful of the law and all due process. One does not know who these people are or for what clear reason they are being tracked other than they are on ‘suspicion’ of being ‘illegal’, but one does not know that for sure.
Make no mistake, this will also impact private citizens because if a precedent can be made here, it will be extended to other groups.
If a Democrat did this, would the Republicans complain (and rightly so) of civil rights violations?
If so, then why should Trump be an exception to the exact same principle?