Recent reports from The 74, The Guardian, and 404 Media have brought to light a troubling reality about modern municipal surveillance: local automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks, including cameras installed near school districts and community centers, are being quietly leveraged to assist federal immigration enforcement.
While technology companies like Flock Safety maintain in official statements that federal agencies do not have direct access to their nationwide camera networks, audit logs and public records tell a different story. Thousands of search entries citing terms like ‘ICE’ and ‘immigration,’ reveal that local law enforcement officers and out-of-state agencies are running sweeping nationwide database queries that pull in data from local cameras on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
For local law enforcement leaders committed to community-oriented policing, these findings undercut the vital foundation of public safety.
The Cost to Community Trust
Effective policing relies on a core principle of the LEITF: public safety depends on mutual trust between local law enforcement and the communities they serve.
When community members—regardless of their immigration status—feel safe approaching local police officers, reporting crimes, and participating as witnesses, data repeatedly shows that crime rates drop and neighborhoods become safer for everyone. But when local surveillance technology (intended initially to protect the public and combat violent crime) is co-opted for federal immigration enforcement, that trust quickly leaves.
When residents see automated tracking systems or school-area cameras feeding data into federal immigration operations, the message sent to immigrant communities is clear: local infrastructure is no longer safe. The effect is immediate—victims and witnesses stop calling 911, and overall community safety suffers.
As LEITF Co-Chair Sheriff Clarence Birkhead of Durham County, North Carolina, has noted regarding federal pressures:
“The pressure is real, that they are trying to force us to further cooperate…I am not going to do the job of customs and border patrol, I am not going to do the ICE raids and participate in that and terrorize my community.”
Unchecked Data Sharing and Local Responses
The architectural design of modern ALPR networks exacerbates this problem. Systems like Flock’s network and lookup tools are built for broad, sweeping queries across shared databases. When an officer runs a multi-jurisdictional search, the system checks participating camera networks indiscriminately—often without an efficient mechanism to exclude sensitive locations like schools, places of worship, or health centers.
In response to these discoveries, cities and law enforcement agencies across the country are taking proactive measures to safeguard local data:
- Clarifying judicial warrant requirements: In Cleveland Heights, Ohio, the City Council passed emergency legislation affirming that local police will not use ALPR data for civil immigration enforcement and prohibiting data-sharing with federal agencies unless presented with a judicial search warrant issued by a judge, explicitly excluding administrative warrants.
- Pausing network sharing: Jurisdictions from Woodburn, Oregon, to Richmond, Virginia, have paused or restricted ALPR network access to ensure compliance with community standards and state privacy laws.
These examples represent only a few of the many communities working to prevent Flock technology from being used for immigration-related purposes.
Refocusing on Core Public Safety
Across the country, police chiefs and sheriffs are drawing a firm line between effective local crime-fighting and the overextension of federal immigration enforcement into local operations.
For law enforcement professionals, the fundamental objective remains clear: protect and maintain the public’s trust, while focusing efforts on crime prevention and deterrence. Turning local license plate readers into indirect deportation tools does not make neighborhoods safer. Instead, it blurs the boundaries of local authority and alienates vulnerable populations.
Ensuring that the use of local public safety tools remains focused on keeping all community members safe requires strict guardrails on data sharing and clear boundaries between local policing and federal immigration enforcement.
Relevant Resources:
The Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force would like to thank Natalie Fernsten, 2026 Fall Intern, for this blog post.