The United States has found a new obsession with using artificial intelligence to decide people’s fate. After this year’s SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) crackdown that wrongly terminated thousands of student visas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now preparing to roll out Palantir’s new AI system called ImmigrationOS.
Palantir’s Role and Government Push
Palantir is no stranger to government contracts. The company already operates ICE’s data-mining systems and has now been paid 30 million dollars to deliver an even larger system by September 2025. The new platform will track immigrants, identify visa overstays, and accelerate deportations.
Flawed Automation Raises Concerns
The ground reality could be far more dangerous. When machines are used to decide who stays and who leaves, the chances of error increase sharply. Earlier this year, SEVIS terminations hit Indian F-1 students particularly hard. Thousands lost their visas because of flawed database matches and rushed enforcement, many for issues that did not justify deportation. Immigration shows that the administration is doubling down on automation without learning from past mistakes.
Data Mining at Massive Scale
Reports suggest that ICE will pull data from passports, Social Security, tax files, and even license plate readers. This information will then be combined into an AI-driven profile of every immigrant. The issue is not just the technology itself but the political agenda behind it. Trump’s hardline immigration stance is driven by speed and scale, and AI offers the government a convenient way to bypass nuance and due process.
Risks for Indian Immigrants
Palantir insists it only provides tools and distances itself from how those tools are used by the government. Experts argue that this is misleading. The way data is selected, how threats are defined, and who gets flagged are all political decisions written into code. For Indians in the US, whether they are students on F-1 visas, workers on H-1Bs, or families waiting in the green card queue, the risks are obvious. A single wrong entry in the system could derail entire careers and futures.
