ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants • Hacker News Board

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#141

Post by self_awareness » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #129

self_awareness wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if ICE deports illegal immigrants, and you're anti-ICE, then you do want those illegal immigrants? Or how is this supposed to work?

> if ICE deports illegal immigrants, and you're anti-ICE, then you do want immigrants? No. I’m anti-murder. This logic is like saying someone who objects to the Nazis is racist against Germans.

So you want to deport, but someone else than ICE should do it?

Also, to be fair, nazis were Germans. Not aliens from outer space. Those were german people who identified with NSDAP party.

Edit: I understand (well, kind of...) why people downvote me, but I'm really lost when trying to understand why they downvote you. I don't think I'll ever understand what's going on.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#142

Post by sbarre » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #106

elric wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are really seeing the fears of data collection from the 2000s and 2010s come to fruition as privatized surveillance now. Cambridge analytica should have been the warning shot but it wasn't enough. I remember protesting against data retention laws in the early 2000s. People thought we were nuts for using historical examples about the Nazis abusing all kinds of records to hunt down Jews. History was never going to…

> People thought we were nuts for using historical examples about the Nazis abusing all kinds of records to hunt down Jews What data-retention issues do you have with HHS having patients’ home addresses?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#143

Post by ardme » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #40

From the leftist-Communist rag (/s) Wall Street Journal : > It started out that way. At the beginning of 2025, 87% of ICE arrests were immigrants with either a prior conviction or a criminal charge pending, according to ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project. Only 13% of those arrested at the beginning of 2025 didn’t have either a conviction or a pending charge. > But the criminal share of apprehensions ha…

I have read the Obama era numbers are inflated because they counted turn aways at the border.

It’s also a little interesting that Obama was able to be against illegal immigration without a ton of pushback. Why was that?

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#144

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #142

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People thought we were nuts for using historical examples about the Nazis abusing all kinds of records to hunt down Jews What data-retention issues do you have with HHS having patients’ home addresses?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Sure. I’m calling out data-retention discussions as entirely orthogonal to HHS data being used for immigration enforcement.

There isn’t a data-retention issue with HHS having home records, there is an abuse issue with DHS giving it to Palantir to VLOOKUP addresses out of.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#145

Post by laylower » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

I am sorry, but what did you expect? Since before Snowden we knew this was coming and this dystopian future is here only because we didn't care enough to do something about it.

Now, where are all these 'I don't have anything to hide people?' I don't see them anywhere...

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#146

Post by mmcwilliams » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

tomaytotomato wrote: post #93

NVHacker wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know that Palantir is now in the UK and getting access to data through the same "health" channels, don't you ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56590249

UK government departments are slow and hostile to change, so I am skeptical that Palantir being parachuted in, would produce anything more than a CSV file with a few hundred rows in it.

Palantir holds over £1B in contracts with the UK government, some of them of an undisclosed nature. Must be some impressive CSV.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#147

Post by xrd » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38

tomaytotomato wrote: post #27

How are Palantir so effective (as this article is alluding)? From a cynical British perspective, when I think of government departments and civil servants. I think inefficiency, data siloing, politics and lack of communication between departments and also internally not communicating between teams. Not withstanding a lack of cooperating and willingness to change. Did Palantir have a political mandate, or can they jus…

> How are Palantir so effective? What are you using to conclude their effectiveness? It appears Palantir “brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a ‘confidence score’ on the person’s current address” [1]. That’s like VLOOKUP. On effectiveness, Trump is deporting fewer people than Obama did with a tenth of the budget. [1] https://www.404media.co/elite-the-palantir-app-ice-uses-to-f...

Whoa, that's the story! I don't see that referenced in the 404media story, do you have a link/summary for that?

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#148

Post by boelboel » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

mvelbaum wrote: post #88

maxerickson wrote: post #25

Amazing the hoops that people will jump through to not enact strong employer penalties.

the "uniparty" benefits from illegal immigration so I guess that's why it's a nonstarter.

Many Americans benefit from illegal immigration, it would kill the middle class in many places if illegal immigrants just went away all of a sudden. States like Texas can hardly survive without it, basically all politicians know this.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#149

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

SilverBirch wrote: post #37

If I'm reading this correctly, they're just straight up violating the law. They're sharing information with ICE under an obligation to share information of aliens, but they're actually sharing everyone's information in an effort to identify aliens. That seems like a pretty slam shut case if there were any mechanism to investigate and prosecute it.

[deleted]

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#150

Post by ardme » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

reenorap wrote: post #86

SilverBirch wrote: post #37

If I'm reading this correctly, they're just straight up violating the law. They're sharing information with ICE under an obligation to share information of aliens, but they're actually sharing everyone's information in an effort to identify aliens. That seems like a pretty slam shut case if there were any mechanism to investigate and prosecute it.

I thought undocumented migrants weren’t allowed to use Medicare or Medicaid. How is that data useful to track them down, then?

Great question. I thought that only citizens could access public healthcare benefits.