'Constantly afraid': immigrants on life under US government surveillance

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : BI case workers can recommend participants' "de-escalation", but it's up to Ice to approve the request.
58% : More than 60,000 people have entered the program in the last year, according to Ice.
56% :Ice said not all people in Isap shared the same circumstances as the people evaluated in the Vera Institute study and that electronic monitoring technology contributed to the program's success.
53% : The US government program was launched in 2004 as a "humane" alternative to detention for immigrants waiting for their cases to be heard in court, a surveillance system that was supposed to keep track of people in the program while helping them access social services.
53% : Holding an exclusive, $2.2bn five-year contract to run Isap for Ice is BI, a company that got its start in monitoring cattle and is owned by one of the country's largest private prison corporations, the Geo Group.
49% : BI referred the Guardian to Ice for all questions concerning its work on Isap.
47% : Participants have also reported needing to show BI a passport to make the transition, even though Ice had confiscated the document when they were detained.
47% : What else is it that you need to do to get this unit off?"Ice confirmed these decisions were made on a case-by-case basis and took into account criteria including immigration status, criminal history, compliance history, community or family ties, caregiver or provider concerns, and other humanitarian or medical conditions.
46% : Two former BI case managers said Ice had only approved about about 20% of those they recommended for de-escalation and had offered few explanations for its decisions.
46% : Ice said the app only tracked locations during check-ins but did not respond to questions about why Macarena and others in the program were told it was always tracking them.
44% : "Before I was sent to detention, I was paying taxes, we were working.
43% :Ice said BI had conducted extensive testing of its products and had not reported any instances or evidence that the ankle monitors produced enough heat or power to overheat or shock someone.
43% : Ice did not respond to questions about whether the agency had independently verified the results of these tests.
43% : Rosalia and Sarah, whose names were also changed to avoid compromising their cases, were detained when they sought asylum in the US in 2018, fleeing anti-trans persecution in Honduras and El Salvador.
40% : However, Ice prohibits attorneys from attending meetings between their clients and BI case managers, according to the 2020 Isap contract.
40% : "When people are out of detention, they think they're on the other side of it, but whatever company has a contract with Ice, we have to be afraid of."Macarena is too relieved to have the monitor off to be worried.
38% : Ice said BI workers were trained to be objective and not to assume that a person in the program is trying to abscond, work illegally or intentionally violate their supervision regimen.
37% : Ice also said there was no proof the ankle monitor caused any physical harm.

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