After our last post, MAGA voices rushed to claim that Trump had nothing to do with the traffic stop involving Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s son, where federal agents demanded proof of his citizenship. Let’s be clear about why this is not a coincidence.
Start with the obvious: her son was driving a vehicle. That vehicle has license plates. ICE does run and access license-plate data, primarily through automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems. These systems allow agents to see exactly who a vehicle is associated with.
Now let’s get into the details.
ICE (and DHS more broadly) has contracts and data-sharing agreements with companies that collect and aggregate license-plate scans, including Flock Safety, OpenALPR/Rekor, Vigilant (Motorola LEARN), and other commercial data brokers. These systems collect extensive information:
– License plate numbers
– Date and time of scans
– GPS location
– Vehicle make, model, and color
– In some cases, photographs of the vehicle
ICE can query this data directly. In addition, ICE receives information from state and local law enforcement agencies and through DHS-funded fusion centers, where federal and local intelligence is combined and shared.
With access to this volume of data, the claim that this stop was random strains credibility. The far more likely explanation is that data was used to identify the vehicle and deliberately target the person driving it.
If someone insists this was unintentional, they’re left with two troubling alternatives: either ICE is so reckless that it randomly stops and harasses U.S. citizens and demands proof of citizenship, or agents are engaging in illegal racial profiling. Neither explanation is acceptable.
Either way, this incident reflects targeted harassment, and it raises serious legal and constitutional concerns.
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