According to the operation held on September 30, 2025, the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE is scanning the eyes of immigrants in their homes and using the data to deport them.
This operation happened to a Venezuelan woman named Norelly Mejías and her family, where ICE is scanning the eyes of immigrants in their homes and using the data to deport them.
What ICE and DHS Have Just Started Doing
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are now extending the biometric system by scanning the eyes of immigrants and deporting them back to their homeland.
This was initiated since the inception of Trump’s second term in service in eliminating illegal immigrants in the United States.
ICE and DHS have now deployed over 1,500 portable iris scanners to help detect illegal immigrants and deport them.
This device is a very sensitive device that it takes photos of the person’s eyes and observes the patterns in the person’s eyes, then compares them in the criminal and government databases for identification.
There have been major concerns in the public as ICE is scanning the eyes of immigrants in their homes and using the data to deport them. ICE and DHS have said they will use all possible tools in their power to ensure they find, detain and deport illegal immigrants.
What Iris Scanning Looks Like in Real Life
ICE Is Scanning the Eyes of Immigrants in Their Homes and Using the Data to Deport Them, The story of the Norelly Mejías made the public to understand how the iris scanning looks like. Norelly narrated her experience of the operation of ICE and DHS held in her home before she got deported to Venezuelan.
Her husband, 6-year-old first grade son, and herself were asleep in their apartment when they heard an aggressive banging on their door by the ICE officers. At first, a black hawk helicopter descended loudly over their building and heavily armed ICE raid their apartment ordering them out of their homes.
During the course of this operation, Mejías fainted and all the family were taken to custody. Thereafter, they were detained and the officer used a handheld device to scan Mejías eyes.
They asked her to open her eyes wide, use the handheld device to scan her eyes, and identified her through the biometric system. This identification process immediately revealed her identity and immigration status.
Mejías who had a pending asylum case at the time of the operation was eventually deported. She is now living in Venezuela. Thou, later investigations revealed that all the people arrested including Mejías had no criminal records or direct link to the members of the Venezuelan gang which are the main target of Trump administration.
What Else ICE Is Collecting From Immigrants
As ICE is scanning the eyes of immigrants in their homes, they are not just dealing with the eyes alone. There is more to the technology than what the public thinks about it. The ICE and DHS have used several operations to detect illegal immigrants which includes facial recognition, license plate readers, location trackers, and DNA samples, however, the iris scanning is one of the most advanced approach.
What Privacy Experts Are Saying and Why They Are Alarmed
Privacy experts described the iris scanning as an unprecedented biometric dragnet. They argue it turns routine immigration enforcement into a high-tech biometric dragnet with weak safeguards, potentially affecting not just illegal immigrants but also U.S. citizens and legal residents caught in operations.
A researcher at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law named Marianna Poyares asked some bothersome questions about the iris scanning, which are:
What else is being collected? Is there any kind of oversight as to who is overseeing these databases? What kind of data is being combined and aggregated and for what use?”
Final Thoughts as ICE Is Scanning the Eyes of Immigrants in Their Homes and Using the Data to Deport Them
The iris scanning creates a surveillance infrastructure that could affect anyone in the immigration system, including those with pending asylum cases like Norelly. Every new development has its own pros and cons.
Report also by pbs.org
The encounter in a Minneapolis suburb this week captures the tactics on display in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota,
The iris scanning is more advantageous to the law enforcement agency in the short term:
however, this becomes abusive long term in the sense that it leads to erosion of privacy, trust in institutions, and risk of authoritarian misuse, most especially if it is applied to non-criminal families.
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