The Department of Homeland Security awarded a $25 million no-bid contract last week to BI2 Technologies for iris scanning equipment, marking a more than fivefold increase from the company's last DHS contract awarded last fall. The expansion comes as the agency deploys advanced biometric technology to support immigration enforcement operations, requesting more than 1,500 iris scanners and access to the company's mobile app database where iris scans are stored.
DHS said in a statement that ICE officers use iris recognition technology "to assist in accurately identifying individuals encountered during immigration enforcement and removal operations, including confirming identities and backgrounds of individuals who may be subject to enforcement actions."
Proven Law Enforcement Tool
Irises contain intricate patterns that are unique to each person, similar to a fingerprint. Sheriffs have used the technology for decades, and BI2 Technologies was created 20 years ago. During the first Trump administration, BI2 donated iris scanners to sheriffs in the Southwestern Border Sheriffs' Coalition, a group of sheriffs serving counties along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Justin Smith, executive director of the National Sheriffs Association, said he used BI2 iris scanners in his jail for booking when he was the sheriff in Larimer County, Colorado. He described it as a camera device mounted on a pole that detainees looked into when they arrived at the jail, with the captured image going into a database. Smith said his deputies also used BI2's smartphone app in the field to identify people.
Smith said it was particularly useful when officers were looking for someone specific who did not have identification, because the only other option would be to take the person into custody to do fingerprints, which takes time. He said he could see how identifying someone quickly could be helpful in targeted immigration enforcement. "They're trying to quickly identify within a large group, 'who do we have here?'" Smith said. "It allows them to clear up people: 'Hey, we know who this person is. This is not the person you're looking for.'"
Privacy Advocates Raise Concerns
Smith also said any technology that can access someone's private information has the potential to be abused, and that how law enforcement should use a tool depends on acknowledging that. "I would say it's a balance test. It's not a black and white, always this, never that," he said. "It's a matter of: How is it used?"
The technology may have been used in a Chicago apartment raid involving Norelly Mejías Cáceres, who was with her husband and first grade son in her apartment when a Black Hawk helicopter filled with federal immigration officers descended on the building. Mejías said officers pointed guns at her and ordered her to leave. She fainted during the raid. When she came to, officers pointed a smartphone at her face to take her photo, she said. She had been crying and her eyes were swollen. "They asked me to open my eyes wide for the photo, so I did. I opened my eyes wide for the camera," she said. Mejías, who had a pending asylum case, was detained and eventually deported and is now living in Venezuela with her family.
Nicole Hallett, a law professor at the University of Chicago and director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic, said she believed the officers wanted more than just an image of Mejías' face and thought they wanted a photo of her irises. "There were other people who were arrested during this raid who reported having a photo taken of them and then having details about them known to the officers. Norelly is the one that we were most certain was an iris scan because of the detail about how she needed to open her eyes," Hallett said.
Hallett said, "The only way they were able to identify people was to illegally arrest them and then use this technology in order to identify them." She added, "This is troubling because we really want law enforcement to be targeting particular people about which it has particular information. And here the government knew nothing before they pointed the device at our client and were able to call up her information from the databases."
Database Questions and Agency Response
Cooper Quintin, a senior staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, "This agency has already proven themselves to be a very rogue agency," and asked, "Could ICE start doing iris scannings of everybody they detain and then add that to their database and use that for further surveillance? Yeah, absolutely." NPR said it has documented multiple cases of federal immigration officers taking DNA samples from people they arrested, including legal observers and protesters who said they were peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights.
Marianna Poyares, a researcher at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, said biometrics can be used simply for identification, such as airport security, but the implications change when sensitive information is stored alongside other sensitive information. She asked, "What else is being collected? Is there any kind of oversight as to who is overseeing these databases? What kind of data is being combined and aggregated and for what use?"
DHS said it is using "every tool available" in its efforts to find, detain and deport undocumented immigrants. As its budget surged in the last year, the agency has collected facial recognition technology, license plate readers and location trackers, among other tools.
Why This Matters:
The rapid expansion of biometric technology in immigration enforcement raises fundamental questions about the balance between effective border security and civil liberties. Law enforcement officials emphasize the technology's practical value in quickly identifying individuals and preventing misidentification, which can protect both officers and innocent parties. However, the lack of clear oversight frameworks for biometric databases and the potential for mission creep remain legitimate concerns. The $25 million contract represents a significant taxpayer investment in technology that has proven effective at the local level for two decades, yet the scale of federal deployment and database integration warrants transparent policies governing data retention, access limitations, and privacy protections. As DHS expands its technological toolkit, establishing clear rules of engagement will be essential to maintaining public trust while ensuring officers have the tools needed to enforce immigration law effectively.