EFF finds local police license-plate readers linked to ICE 'Immigration Violator' file

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said Thursday that public-records responses show at least two local police departments using Flock Safety automated license plate readers had enabled the National Crime Information Center’s “Immigration Violator” alert topic, linking local plate-reader alerts to an ICE-maintained file. The finding, published June 25 in an investigation by EFF’s Dave Maass, offers a documented example of how local police ALPR systems can be configured to flag vehicles sought for immigration enforcement.

Flock’s cameras capture license plates and compare them against selected law enforcement “hotlists,” generating real-time alerts when a plate matches an entry. Flock publicly markets its NCIC integration and hotlist alerting. NCIC, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, distributes a range of law enforcement files, including categories such as stolen vehicles and missing persons, that local agencies can subscribe to.

According to EFF and the public-records responses it linked, 13 law enforcement agencies responded to its requests about their Flock configurations. EFF said two agencies had the Immigration Violator topic enabled in Flock: the Blue Island Police Department in Illinois and the Sparks Police Department in Nevada. EFF said 11 other responding agencies were using NCIC hotlists but had Immigration Violator disabled.

Sparks is the clearest example of a gap between a public-facing policy statement and the system settings described in records. The Sparks Police Department’s public Flock transparency portal says, “Prohibited Uses: Immigration enforcement, traffic enforcement, harassment or intimidation …” The same portal also says, “Hotlists Alerted On: National Crime Information Center (NCIC) …” EFF reported that records show Sparks nonetheless had the Immigration Violator topic enabled.

That matters because the Immigration Violator file is not just another general NCIC category. The NCIC Operating Manual says, “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the only agency authorized to enter and maintain records in the Immigration Violator File.” The manual adds that, “The Immigration Violator File contains records on criminal aliens who have been deported for drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, or serious violent crimes and on foreign-born individuals who have violated some section of the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

The manual also says the file can include vehicle information that an ALPR system could use to trigger an alert. “If the ICE has reasonable grounds to believe that the subject may be operating a particular vehicle or a vehicle bearing a particular license plate, the vehicle and/or license data may be included in the record,” the manual says. In practical terms, that means a local police department using Flock and subscribed to that topic could receive an immigration-related alert when one of its cameras reads a matching plate.

EFF also reported that, according to Flock, the alert goes to the local agency that enabled the topic, not automatically to ICE. Quoting an email from the company, EFF wrote: “Local agencies add/remove license plates from the NCIC list. The FBI curates the NCIC list, and pushes it out to local agencies. Once the list leaves the FBI, they do not see any agency alerts. They only see when a local agency adds or removes plates from the list.” EFF said Flock told it that local police could still choose to contact ICE after receiving an alert.

The report does not document any particular traffic stop, arrest or referral to federal immigration authorities. Its significance is narrower, but important: It identifies a software setting inside local police ALPR systems that can determine whether officers receive alerts tied to an ICE-maintained file.

The broader oversight issue is straightforward. Agencies may publicly disclose that they use NCIC hotlists without specifying which topics are actually switched on. As the Sparks example shows, a public statement that immigration enforcement is prohibited may not match the backend configuration inside the vendor’s system, and that choice can determine whether local police receive immigration-related license plate alerts.