For the first time in a US courtroom, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers confirmed under sworn oath that they used a Palantir-built targeting application called ELITE to identify arrest locations. Officers were ordered to make eight arrests per team each day during operations that a federal judge subsequently ruled were 'violent and brutal' and violated the US Constitution.
The testimony, delivered during a December 2025 hearing in the federal class-action suit M-J-M-A v. Wamsley, was first reported in full by The Guardian on March 13, 2026 and marks the most detailed on-record account yet of how quota-driven enforcement and AI-assisted surveillance are operating together at the street level of America's mass deportation campaign.
