Emerald Tse

YouTube video by Rep. Ayanna Pressley Rep. Pressley Slams DHS for Stealing Immigrants’ DNA and Giving to FBI Databases

Thank you @pressley.house.gov for bringing attention to DHS’s abusive DNA collection program in Congress this week. The public deserves transparency about how federal immigration enforcement handles people’s sensitive genetic material.

CBP Wants New Tech to Search for Hidden Data on Seized Phones Customs and Border Protection is asking companies to pitch tools for performing deep analysis on the contents of devices seized at the US border.

CBP is looking to expand cell phone hacking capabilities for seized phones at the border.

The more CBP has access to our private data, the more they will continue to bypass due process and justify their unlawful deportations

www.wired.com/story/cbp-wa...

Border Patrol Wants Advanced AI to Spy on American Cities A Customs and Border Protection “Industry Day” deck also asks for drones, seismic sensors, and tech that can see through walls.

Border Patrol is buying new tech... "advanced AI" to surveil dense residential areas? Automated surveillance towers? Tech to see through walls??

I talked to @sambiddle.com of @theintercept.com about serious risks amid the agency's increasingly aggressive behavior.

theintercept.com/2025/07/23/c...

Wyden Demands Answers on Shadowy, Mass Collection of DNA from Immigrants by DHS | U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon The Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon

This week, @wyden.senate.gov cited findings from our recent update to the “Raiding the Genome” report in an oversight letter to DHS and DOJ, raising important questions about the massive DNA collection program led by those agencies. www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-r...

DHS Faces New Pressure Over DNA Taken From Immigrant Children The US government has added the DNA of approximately 133,000 migrant children and teens to a criminal database, which critics say could mean police treat them like suspects “indefinitely.”

NEW: @wyden.senate.gov is pressing DHS and DOJ to answer questions about the collection of children's DNA, which is being added to a criminal database. @dell.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/dhs-an...

“It’s very clear that the current goal is to continue to grow digital surveillance and use it for whatever this current administration decides,” our Associate @ehtse.bsky.social told @prismreports.org

I was interviewed for this piece:

ICE Is Searching a Massive Insurance and Medical Bill Database to Find Deportation Targets The database, called ISO ClaimSearch, is nearly all encompassing and contains details on more than 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills.

New from 404 Media: ICE is searching a massive insurance and medical bill database to find deportation targets, according to internal ICE material. The database is all encompassing, contains details on 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills www.404media.co/ice-is-searc...

Graphic with report title and image of family with children and text "New Update"

Last year, we published “Raiding the Genome: How the United States Government Is Abusing Its Immigration Powers to Amass DNA for Future Policing.” Since then, we’ve continued to research DHS’s DNA-collection program. Today, we’re sharing some updates.

raidingthegenome.org

Struggling with the work/they're building concentration camps balance.

Had a great chat with @mludwig.bsky.social for this important piece

Waymo Pauses Service in Downtown LA Neighborhood Where They're Getting Lit on Fire A company spokesperson said it is working with law enforcement to determine when it can move the cars that have been.

Gonna try to be nuanced here and speak broadly: There are several reasons to be skeptical of driverless cars, but the biggest one is the fact that they need to record everything in order to function. And then police see them as an extension of the surveillance state and act accordingly

ICE arrested 36 Chinese & Taiwanese immigrants after raiding an LA nightclub. That's them, ziptied on the sidewalk.

Yo Asians—if you weren't already outraged and mobilizing on behalf of others, guess what? That "First they came for the..." poem has gotten up to us.
www.latimes.com/california/s...

ICE Moves to DNA-Test Families Targeted for Deportation with New Contract Advocates worry the tests will pave the way for the Trump administration to separate children from their caregivers.

As the Trump administration ramps up immigration enforcement in the nation's interior, it’s trying to issue a $25 million contract for DNA testing. "The mass collection of this data leaves it open for abuse," Associate @ehtse.bsky.social told @bloomberg.com

Quoted in this!

Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans

"The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies..."

She was also my co-author on Raiding rhe Genome (also cited in the article)! www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-tech...

The privacy expert is @sglabe.bsky.social!

She says: “That’s not immigration enforcement. That’s genetic surveillance.”

The US Is Storing Migrant Children’s DNA in a Criminal Database Customs and Border Protection has swabbed the DNA of migrant children as young as 4, whose genetic data is uploaded to an FBI-run database that can track them if they commit crimes in the future.

NEW: The US government has collected DNA samples from 133,000+ migrant children and teenagers and uploaded them into CODIS, a national criminal database originally built for convicted sex offenders and violent criminals, according to documents reviewed by WIRED.

ICE Taps into Nationwide AI-Enabled Camera Network, Data Shows Flock's automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are in more than 5,000 communities around the U.S. Local police are doing lookups in the nationwide system for ICE.

SCOOP: ICE, HSI, and DHS are getting side-door access to the nationwide system of Flock license plate cameras by asking local police to perform lookups for them, new public records show.

ICE does *not* have a contract to use this surveillance tool itself.

www.404media.co/ice-taps-int...

The provision doesn't just affect AI. It blocks *all* state laws regulating *any use of a computer.* That includes privacy, kids online safety, online fraud, nonconsensual pornography, anything.

The bill text sloppily defines AI to sweep in any use of a computer and its exceptions are broken.

207: How Public Defenders Can and Have Beaten Mass Immigration Prosecutions w/Eric Fish | Public Defenseless Podcast

Don't wanna read the paper (though I highly recommend)? Here's a podcast about it www.everand.com/podcast/7289...

Last year, @ericfish.bsky.social published a paper what resisting programs like Operation Lone Star might look like papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Operation Lone Star, which still continues today, has diverted billions in essential funding for TX communities. www.ilrc.org/sites/defaul...

Texas lawmakers deplore mistreatment of National Guardsmen sent to border duty Legislative leaders overseeing the Texas Military Department say they are looking into reports of suicides, habitual pay problems and poor working conditions on Gov. Greg Abbott's highly touted border...

Abbott deployed thousands of National Guardsmen. Even the service members tasked with implementing the state initiative have themselves reported poor working conditions, pay issues, suicide. www.texastribune.org/2022/01/07/t...

What is Operation Lone Star? Gov. Greg Abbott’s controversial border mission, explained. The governor has ordered thousands of state troopers and National Guard members to the border since last year. Here’s what you need to know about the initiative.

Operation Lone Star launched in 2021. This program uses state resources, including to arrest migrants crossing Texas's southern border. www.texastribune.org/2022/03/30/o...

TX Gov. Abbott has been test running this for the past few years. To understand what this might look like nationwide, we need to look to “Operation Lone Star.”

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American Dragnet | Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century One of two American adults is in a law enforcement face recognition database. An investigation.

Three years ago, we released “American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century.” The report describes the surveillance apparatus that Trump is using to target immigrants, activists and anyone else who challenges his agenda. We’re re-releasing it today with a new foreword.

CFBP Quietly Kills Rule to Shield Americans From Data Brokers Russell Vought, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has canceled plans to more tightly regulate the sale of Americans’ sensitive personal data.

SCOOP: CFBP just cancelled plans to implement new rules that would have tightened restrictions on what sensitive personal info data brokers are allowed to sell. The rule was proposed after data about US servicemembers was repeatedly exposed in which experts term a national security nightmare.

NIH director proposes national health database, sparks privacy concerns Privacy experts are sounding the alarm after the federal government announced a plan earlier this week to create a health database of the U.S. population. National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bh...

ICYMI: NIH is building a national health database.

"We know that health information is incredibly sensitive. When people go to their healthcare provider, they're giving up that information because they have to in order to receive a service." - Associate @ehtse.bsky.social, to @nbcwashington.com