TL;DR: On June 8, 2026, border czar Tom Homan appeared on Fox & Friends and said federal investigators used facial recognition to match anti-ICE demonstrators at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, to protests in Portland and Minnesota. "We've got facial recognition of people from Portland ... and many from Minnesota," he said. He called them "paid protesters." The admission confirms what civil liberties groups have warned about for years: the federal government is using biometric surveillance tools, including Clearview AI (50+ billion scraped photos) and NEC's Mobile Fortify (phone-based face scanning), to track Americans exercising their First Amendment rights across state lines. There are currently zero federal laws restricting how ICE, CBP, or the FBI use facial recognition on protesters. Over 80 people have been arrested at Delaney Hall since protests began in late May 2026.
He Said the Quiet Part Out Loud
Tom Homan went on Fox & Friends on June 8 and said something that should have led every newscast in the country.
"We've got facial recognition of people from Portland, they're at Portland riots, and many from Minnesota," the border czar told the hosts. "This is a well-planned, established thing they're doing" [1].
He was talking about the protests at Delaney Hall, a detention center in Newark, New Jersey, where hundreds of people have gathered since late May 2026 to oppose ICE operations. Over 80 people have been arrested. Detainees inside launched a hunger strike on May 22, reporting moldy food, denied medical care, and overcrowded cells without air conditioning [2][3].
Homan's point was that the protesters were outsiders, "paid agitators" from other states. His evidence: the government ran their faces through a database and matched them to demonstrations in other cities.
Let that sink in. A senior federal official went on national television and confirmed, on the record, that the government is using biometric surveillance to identify people at protests and track their protest history across state lines.
The Technology Behind the Tracking
Homan did not name which system was used. But federal agencies have at least three major facial recognition tools at their disposal, and all of them have been deployed at protest sites in 2026.
Clearview AI. The most notorious. Clearview has scraped over 50 billion images from the public internet, social media, news sites, and personal blogs. ICE has held contracts with Clearview since at least 2020. CBP expanded its contract in 2025. A single photo can be matched against the entire database in seconds [4].
Mobile Fortify. This is ICE's phone-based facial recognition tool, built on biometric technology from NEC Corporation. Agents hold up a phone, snap a photo, and Mobile Fortify compares the face against DHS databases containing immigration records, criminal booking photos, and other biometric data. Originally built for border checkpoints, it has been deployed at protests in Minneapolis, New Jersey, and elsewhere. In January 2026, NBC News obtained video of ICE agents using Mobile Fortify during street-level enforcement operations [5].
FBI's Next Generation Identification (NGI). The FBI's system searches hundreds of millions of images from federal and state sources: criminal mug shots, DMV photos, civil background checks, and visa applications. The FBI can pull still frames from protest footage and run them against NGI to identify individuals [6].
These tools do not operate in isolation. According to reporting from Biometric Update and NPR, ICE and the FBI combine facial recognition results with data from Palantir's intelligence platform, social media monitoring tools from Penlink and Paragon Solutions, cellphone location data from commercial brokers, and license plate reader networks [5][6].
The pipeline works like this: your face gets matched. Your name gets pulled. Your social media gets scraped. Your phone's location history gets purchased. By the time an agent approaches you at a protest, they may already know your name, your address, your employer, and every other demonstration you have attended.
It Already Happened in Minneapolis
Homan's admission about Delaney Hall is not the first time federal agents have used facial recognition at protests in 2026. Minneapolis provided the blueprint.
In January 2026, Nicole Cleland was sitting in her car near an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis when an ICE agent approached her window. He addressed her by name. She had never met him. He told her he had facial recognition technology and was recording her. Three days later, her Global Entry and TSA PreCheck privileges were revoked without explanation [6].
At least seven American citizens in Minneapolis reported being told by ICE agents that facial recognition was recording them during early 2026 enforcement operations. One woman was photographed and told she was in a "domestic terrorism" database. Others were informed their faces would be added to databases without their consent [6].
The ACLU sued DHS over the Minneapolis operations, arguing the technology combination grants the government "unprecedented monitoring and dissent-deterrence capabilities" [6].
Zero Federal Laws Restrict This
Here is the part that should alarm you most: there are currently no federal laws restricting how ICE, CBP, the FBI, or any other federal law enforcement agency uses facial recognition on American citizens at protests.
State-level bans exist. About two dozen cities and several states have restricted police use of facial recognition. But federal agencies are not bound by state restrictions. ICE can deploy Clearview AI or Mobile Fortify in San Francisco, Portland, or anywhere else, regardless of local ordinances [6].
Congressional Democrats sent a letter in November 2025 demanding ICE "suspend its use of facial recognition in U.S. cities" and requested deployment records. The demand went nowhere [6].
Representative Bennie Thompson introduced legislation in early 2026 to require warrants before federal agents use Mobile Fortify. The bill has not advanced [7].
The legal theory protecting protest surveillance is thin but effective: facial recognition results are classified as "investigative leads," not evidence. This framing lets agencies argue they are not conducting surveillance of protected activity. They are merely "identifying individuals," which happens to involve scanning faces at protests, matching them across databases, and tracking their movement between cities [6].
The Point Is to Make You Stay Home
Homan framed the facial recognition results as evidence that the Delaney Hall protesters were "paid" outsiders. Set aside whether that is true (public defenders have sought dismissal for at least 40 of those arrested, suggesting many are ordinary people) [8]. The larger question is: since when does the government get to build a biometric dossier on you for attending a protest?
The First Amendment protects the right to peacefully assemble. It does not contain an asterisk that says "unless federal agents run your face through Clearview AI and find you were also at a rally in Portland."
Civil liberties experts have a term for what happens when the government makes surveillance visible at protests: the chilling effect. The ACLU argues that when people know their faces are being scanned and stored, fewer people show up. That is the point. You do not need to arrest everyone at a protest if you can make attending one feel like signing up for a watchlist [9].
The tools Homan referenced do not distinguish between someone committing a crime and someone holding a sign. Protesters, legal observers, medics, journalists, and bystanders all appear in the same footage. When agents scan a crowd, everyone gets processed [6].
Protecting Yourself at Protests
- Wear a face covering. Masks, sunglasses, and hats reduce facial recognition accuracy. Some states have proposed mask bans at protests; know your local laws before you go.
- Leave your phone at home or use airplane mode. ICE purchases cellphone location data from commercial brokers. If your phone is at the protest, they can buy that data later without a warrant.
- Do not bring your ID. If arrested, you will be asked for identification. But carrying it at a protest gives agents immediate access to your name if they search you.
- Use a burner phone for coordination. A prepaid phone with no associated accounts limits what agents can learn from your device.
- Know your rights. You are not required to answer questions from federal agents. You can refuse to identify yourself unless you are being detained or arrested. The ACLU has a Protesters' Rights guide worth reading before you go.
- Document the surveillance. If agents are using phones to scan faces (Mobile Fortify), record it. That footage becomes evidence in legal challenges.
This Is What Unchecked Surveillance Looks Like
Homan's Fox News appearance was supposed to be about discrediting protesters. He wanted viewers to think the demonstrators at Delaney Hall were out-of-state agitators, not concerned citizens.
What he actually demonstrated is that the federal government has built a system capable of tracking your protest activity across the country using your face. That system operates with no legal guardrails, no judicial oversight, and no public accountability. The only reason we know it was used at Delaney Hall is because Homan bragged about it on television.
EFF Senior Policy Analyst Dr. Matthew Guariglia testified to Congress on June 4 that generative AI combined with mass government surveillance would "supercharge unconstitutional violations of civil liberties." He was talking about the next wave. Homan just showed us the current one [10].
The question is not whether the government has the technology to track you at a protest. That question was answered years ago. The question is whether there will be any legal limit on when they use it.
Right now, the answer is no.
Sources
- Washington Examiner: "Homan says most anti-ICE protesters at Delaney Hall are not state residents" (June 2026)
- PBS NewsHour: "What to know about the protests and arrests outside a New Jersey detention center" (June 2026)
- American Friends Service Committee: "What's really happening at Delaney Hall?" (June 2026)
- Immigration Policy Tracking: "ICE contracts with Clearview AI for facial-recognition technology"
- NBC News: "How ICE agents are using facial recognition technology to bring surveillance to the streets" (2026)
- Biometric Update: "ICE, FBI expand facial recognition use to protest investigations" (February 2026)
- TechPolicy.Press: "How ICE Will Spy On Protesters, And How You Can Protect Your Privacy"
- NJ 101.5: "Public defenders seek dismissal for 40 protesters as 7 more are arrested at Delaney Hall" (June 2026)
- ACLU: "America's Mask Bans in the Age of Face Recognition Surveillance"
- EFF: "EFF Testifies to Congress on Protecting Americans' Rights from Government AI" (June 2026)