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Comment by ncr100 | Hacker News Reader

If I read the results correctly, weird to see a potential cell-catcher at the US Immigration center. Could this reasonably be interpreted as "someone is sniffing immigrant's cell traffic" .. gathering intelligence about potential candidates for immigration?

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Just a wild guess, but If I were trying to find illegal immigrants, seeding a social graph with legal immigrants might be a good place to start. (This comment is in no way an endorsement of the methods or goals of ICE.)

They straight up give them cell phones when they release them into the interior[0]. None of that is required.

This is to catch mules bringing over drugs and sex traffickers most likely. Once they get to the other side, need to call for a pick up.

[0]https://apnews.com/article/immigration-covid-technology-busi...

I read that entire article and nowhere does it say they give them phones.

The entire article is about installing an app on their personal phones.

Tried to find a neutral article. All of the rest of them highlight how ineffective this move by the Biden administration has been.

https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/costly-failure-biden-...

Thank you…this seems to actually support the point that’s all I really care about

Why does it need to say in the article when it's plainly known?

It's not plainly known and no sources claim this.

It's been a political talking point for years...

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/06/05/us/border-migrants-cell-p...

Because he stated it and used a citation to support it.

I’m entirely agnostic to what the claim is, what ideology it supports, or even whether or not it’s true.

You use a citation to increase the credibility of you claim or argument. If the citation doesn’t actually say what you said that is a problem.

If I said aliens are real here is proof and cite a lasagna recipe that’s a problem

I did my green card interviews and got my citizenship in that USCIS building, and based on what I observed first hand in the waiting room, I'm not entirely surprised they are monitoring cell phones in the area.

During the "migrant waves" a few years ago (2015+, when angela merkel invited them, then left most of them "outside"), our telcos actually gave out free sim cards with a few gigs of data traffic as a "gift" to migrants, and there was a lot of complaining since noone figured out that those can be used for tracking those people, both in my country and also other EU countries, wherever they went legally or not.

Weird? Sorry, but the US intelligence services are collecting _everything_ they can get their hands on. Of course they'll collect data from immigrants.

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