Controversial Expansion: ICE Doubles Ankle Monitor Use on Legal Immigrants
Immigrant advocates criticize ICE's growing reliance on ankle monitors, claiming they are uncomfortable, interfere with employment, and coerce self-deportation.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has doubled its use of ankle monitors for legal immigrants over the past year, a move that has drawn widespread criticism from immigrant advocates. According to reports, the agency is increasingly using these devices, which are uncomfortable and can interfere with employment, to push people to self-deport.
One such case involves a single mother seeking asylum who had been attending routine check-ins with immigration authorities without issue for five years. However, at her most recent appointment in October, she was unexpectedly ordered to strap on an ankle monitor, according to her attorney, Deepa Bijpuria, a supervising attorney in the immigration unit of Legal Aid DC.
Bijpuria's client fled her home country due to severe domestic violence, escaping while pregnant with her young daughter. The use of ankle monitors in such cases has been described by advocates as a
