After receiving $170 billion in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Department of Homeland Security went on a shopping spree. One result has been an expanding arsenal of surveillance tools that it is now deploying in interior immigration enforcement, often against American citizens — a dangerous development that threatens some of their most hallowed constitutional rights.

One of the most visible examples of these tools is mobile facial recognition, which is playing a growing part in the administration’s expansive sweeps in American cities. Jose Gutiérrez, a US citizen from Chicago, got off lucky. After he was pulled into an unmarked van and handcuffed, a mobile scan confirmed his statements that he was a citizen. Not so for Luis Martinez, also a US citizen. Federal agents in Minneapolis boxed him in on his drive to work, and the system couldn’t match his face. He wasn’t released until he produced his passport.

© Bloomberg