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After federal brokers shot and killed Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday, Palantir staff pressed for solutions from management on the corporate’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—and plenty of questioned whether or not Palantir must be concerned with the company in any respect. Management defended its work as partly bettering “ICE’s operational effectiveness.”
Inside Slack messages reviewed by WIRED reveal rising frustration inside Palantir over its relationship with the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS), and particularly, ICE’s enforcement and investigations groups. In response, Palantir’s privateness and civil liberties crew printed an replace to the corporate’s inner wiki detailing its work on federal immigration enforcement, arguing that the “know-how is making a distinction in mitigating dangers whereas enabling focused outcomes.”
In a Saturday thread on Slack discussing Pretti’s killing, Palantir staff questioned each the ethics and the enterprise logic of continuous the corporate’s work with ICE.
“Our involvement with ice has been internally swept below the rug below Trump2 an excessive amount of. We want an understanding of our involvement right here,” one particular person wrote.
“Can Palantir put any stress on ICE in any respect?” wrote one other. “I’ve learn tales of parents rounded up who have been searching for asylum with no order to go away the nation, no prison file, and persistently verify in with authorities. Actually no motive to be rounded up. Certainly we aren’t serving to do this?”
The dialogue was held in a company-wide Slack channel devoted to basic world information protection. The messages seen by WIRED acquired dozens of “+1” emoji responses from different staff seemingly backing requests for extra details about Palantir’s relationship with ICE. Palantir didn’t reply to requests for remark from WIRED.
On Sunday, Courtney Bowman, Palantir’s world director of privateness and civil liberties engineering, responded to the avalanche of worker questions by linking out to the corporate’s inner wiki describing its DHS and immigration enforcement contracts. The put up—final up to date, on the time WIRED reviewed it, on January 24 by Akash Jain, whose LinkedIn lists him as chief know-how officer and president of Palantir USG, which works with US authorities companies—says that in April 2025, Palantir started a six-month pilot supporting ICE in three main areas: “Enforcement Operations Prioritization and Focusing on,” “Self-Deportation Monitoring,” and “Immigration Lifecycle Operations centered on logistics planning and execution.”
These capabilities align with a $30 million contract ICE awarded Palantir in April for a platform referred to as ImmigrationOS. Based on contracting info offered by DHS on the time, the system would give ICE “close to real-time visibility” into individuals self-deporting and assist the company determine and choose who to deport. Based on Palantir’s wiki, the pilot for these providers was renewed in September for an extra six-month interval, and the self-deportation monitoring “is being folded into the work on Enforcement Operations Prioritization and Focusing on.”
Palantir has additionally began a brand new pilot with US Citizenship and Immigration Companies (USCIS) to help officers “in figuring out fraudulent profit submissions,” the wiki says. The Trump administration has used allegations of fraud to justify elevated ICE presence in cities like Minneapolis.
“There have been growing, and more and more seen, subject operations centered on inside immigration enforcement that proceed to draw consideration to Palantir’s involvement with ICE,” the wiki says. “We consider that our work might have an actual and constructive impression on ICE enforcement operations by offering officers and brokers with the info to make extra exact, knowledgeable choices. We’re dedicated to giving our companions the very best software program for the job, whereas acknowledging the reputational threat we face when supporting immigration enforcement operations.”
The wiki acknowledges “growing reporting round U.S. Residents being swept up in enforcement motion and held, in addition to reviews of racial profiling allegedly utilized as pretense for the detention of some U.S. Residents,” however argues that Palantir’s clients at ICE “stay dedicated to avoiding the illegal/pointless focusing on, apprehension, and detention of U.S. Residents wherever and nonetheless doable.”
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