2 months ago
For 5 years, an asylum-seeking female attended regular check-ins pinch migration authorities without issue. At her astir caller assignment successful October, she was unexpectedly ordered to strap connected an ankle monitor, according to her attorney, Deepa Bijpuria.
Bijpuria, a supervising lawyer successful nan migration portion of Legal Aid DC, described nan customer arsenic a azygous mom who fled her location state because of terrible home violence, escaping while pregnant pinch her young daughter.
“[The order] was conscionable specified a displacement aft she’d been complying for years while waiting for her asylum exertion to beryllium heard and decided,” she said.
Bijpuria said nan moving mom, who declined an question and reply and requested anonymity owed to her susceptible situation, mislaid astatine slightest 1 occupation aft receiving nan ankle monitor.
Bijpuria’s customer is not nan only migrant to beryllium blindsided by ankle show requirements. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses physics monitoring done its Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program, which was formally implemented successful 2004 to guarantee that immigrants comply pinch ineligible obligations while their cases proceed without being placed successful detention.
ATD compliance methods besides see mobile apps and telephone check-ins. But Evan Benz, a elder lawyer astatine nan Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said location has been a “market shift” towards utilizing ankle monitors pursuing a June 2025 soul ICE memo directing officers to spot nan devices connected anyone enrolled successful nan ATD program.
The number of group successful nan ATD programme pinch ankle monitors astir doubled successful consequent months, moreover arsenic wide enrollment successful nan programme remained stable. The full grew from astir 24,000 astatine nan clip of nan memo, a fig reported by nan Washington Post, to astir 42,000 past month, according to a February fiscal twelvemonth 2026 ICE report.
The summation has not been evenly distributed crossed nan country. The February ICE study revealed that enforcement varies by region, pinch nan DC area having nan highest number of group required to deterioration ankle monitors successful nan country.
“If you’re successful nan area of nan Washington DC section office, which covers Virginia and nan metropolis of Washington DC, past you’re drastically much apt to beryllium subjected to ankle monitoring,” Benz said. “But it’s not really clear precisely what nan logic is for location variation.”
In an email to nan Guardian, an ICE spokesperson said that nan ATD programme uses “individualized determinations” to tailor supervision levels connected a case-by-case basis, allowing ICE to escalate aliases de-escalate oversight arsenic needed. The spokesperson added that decisions are based connected criminal history, compliance grounds and “any different applicable factors” erstwhile determining whether to support personification successful detention during ongoing proceedings.
Bijpuria said uneven enforcement highlights nan “arbitrary” quality of ankle show assignments, recalling galore clients who were fitted pinch nan devices contempt having complied pinch their ineligible obligations. The cases, she said, raise questions astir whether ensuring compliance is genuinely nan extremity down nan monitoring.
These concerns are reinforced by a 2021 study conducted by nan Cardozo School of Law, which recovered that ankle monitors do not needfully amended compliance and whitethorn moreover beryllium counterproductive. The study recovered that 98% of immigrants released without physics ankle monitors attended each tribunal hearings and ICE check-ins, compared pinch 93% of those required to deterioration nan devices.
Legal experts opportunity uncertainty astir nan motives down ankle show orders is exacerbated by constricted transparency from national authorities. ICE’s soul memo was ne'er released publicly, prompting nan Amica Center to record a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Benz said ICE initially responded to nan suit by saying it would people nan memo connected its website. The agency later said it could not do truthful astatine nan infinitesimal because of nan ongoing Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown.
“We’ve seen that ICE is not an agency that cares very overmuch astir transparency successful its dealings pinch immigrants, aliases really nan nationalist astatine large,” Benz said.
Julia Decker, argumentation head astatine nan Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said nan deficiency of transparency reflects a strategy of “intentional chaos”, successful which creating uncertainty and worry successful migrant communities is “part of nan plan”.
Decker raised concerns that nan usage of ankle monitors and nan broader ATD programme could go different measurement to “force” immigrants into a correction that would push them into detention.
“I deliberation that it’s very, very apt that immoderate programme for illustration this becomes a measurement to chimney you correct backmost into nan very strategy that it was expected to beryllium an replacement to,” she said. “Particularly pinch an management for illustration this 1 that has been very nationalist pinch its statements astir wanting to apprehension and deport arsenic galore [people arsenic possible].”
Benz echoed Decker’s concerns, calling nan ATD programme an “alternative shape of detention” alternatively than a existent replacement to detention.
“We’ve seen a number of cases wherever ICE has utilized nan ankle show to way down personification astatine home,” he said. “Sometimes location has been a ruse of ‘Hey, tin you travel outside? We sewage an alert. There’s thing incorrect pinch your ankle monitor, and we conscionable request to cheque it out.’ And past that personification is really detained by ICE.”
Beyond expanding nan consequence of detention, ankle monitors enforce psychological, economical and beingness harms connected nan group required to deterioration them, experts said.
“There are very onerous conditions of supervision, for illustration curfews, location inspections and restrictions connected wherever you tin travel,” Benz said. “All of these mixed tin return a awesome toll connected an individual connected a psychological level. They don’t consciousness free. They consciousness arsenic if they’re being watched, and they are besides having their liberty, their state of movement, really physically restrained.”
He noted that group wearing ankle monitors are much apt to suffer their jobs, arsenic nan devices are often associated pinch nan criminal ineligible strategy and tin make those who deterioration them look suspicious to employers.
Bijpuria emphasized nan beingness discomfort of ankle monitors. “Besides nan psychological trauma, shame and disruption, it’s difficult to sleep.”
She added that nan operation of deportation threats and nan various harms of ankle monitors appears designed to unit group into self-deportation. Last year, nan past DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, announced a nationwide, multimillion-dollar run that offered incentives for self-deportation, including up to $1,000 successful financial assistance and free travel.
“We’ve seen group who’ve been detained aliases put connected ankle monitoring who person options but, because of nan conditions that they’re subjected to, yet determine to self-deport,” Bijpuria said. “You besides person to retrieve location are backstage companies involved, and location is personification who’s making money from each this. They don’t person capable capacity for detaining everyone, truthful this is an replacement still getting you successful that pipeline to eventual removal.”
Amid nan shifting scenery of migration policies, a continuing DHS shutdown and activity changes, Benz stressed nan value of submitting a written petition to ICE for removal aliases avoidance of nan device, supported by aesculapian archiving demonstrating its antagonistic impacts. Benz pointed to guides for attorneys representing clients successful nan ATD programme and group navigating nan process without ineligible representation.
“I deliberation that [ankle monitoring and nan ATD program] person flown nether nan radar successful portion because location are truthful galore atrocious things that this agency is doing each time successful position of ripping group distant from their families and their communities,” Benz said. “But nan usage of ankle monitors by ICE is simply a very harmful phenomenon.”
