January 28, 2026
From checkups to crackdowns
ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants
From your clinic to ICE’s dashboard, say furious commenters
TLDR: ICE is reportedly using a Palantir app fed by health records to map and target raids, fueling a firestorm about privacy, ethics, and trust in healthcare. Commenters blast private surveillance, accuse political hypocrisy, and joke darkly about “Google Maps for deportations,” warning that legal doesn’t mean ethical.
The internet is melting down over reports that ICE is using a Palantir-built app to pull health data—including names, addresses, and photos—to map neighborhoods and build “confidence scores” for home raids. After an ICU nurse, Alex Pretti, was shot by agents in Minneapolis, the outrage hit full boil. Fans of civil liberties dubbed it “Google Maps for deportations”, with one user warning that any benefit you get from government can be “weaponized” later. Another called out a July 2025 deal that gave ICE access to details on 79 million Medicaid recipients, asking: if patients don’t trust doctors with their info, who will go to the doctor at all?
The debate got sharp. Some pointed at Palantir’s growing role in health systems (like the UK’s NHS deal) and said private surveillance is scarier because companies want to invent new ways to track you and sell it. Others took a political swing, calling out “small government” conservatives for cheering big-state tactics when it fits their agenda. And yes, there were memes: Elon Musk was randomly accused of “the biggest data heist” for laughs, while old-schoolers dusted off the Miranda warning—“anything you say can and will be used against you”—as a new rule for giving personal info to the state. Palantir’s official line? They won’t comment on data sources and expect agencies to follow the law. The crowd’s response: legal isn’t the same as ethical 404 Media The BMJ
Key Points
- •404 Media reports ICE uses Palantir’s Elite app, which draws on HHS and other datasets, to identify targets and plan detention raids.
- •Elite maps areas with higher densities of potential detainees, pulls personal details from health records, and generates dossiers with confidence scores; it was used in an Oregon raid that resulted in 30 arrests.
- •An HHS spokesperson said federal laws authorize CMS to share certain information with DHS; there is no data-sharing agreement covering US citizens and lawful permanent residents.
- •A July 2025 agreement would share personal data of 79 million Medicaid recipients with ICE, including names, addresses, birth dates, and racial/ethnic information.
- •Rights groups and some US states challenged the practice, leading to temporary suspensions; an expert warned legal sharing could still damage trust in healthcare.