ICE Hunts Down Immigrants by Spying on Their Wire Transfers

Court records confirm what civil liberties advocates long warned would happen: Immigration and Customs Enforcement is using sensitive data about wire transfers between the U.S. and Mexico to track down immigrants for deportation.

The records were filed in a federal criminal case in Hawaii, as first reported by Honolulu Civil Beat earlier this week.

Gregorio Cordova Murrieta, who is originally from Mexico, was not indicted for money laundering, human trafficking, or any of the grave offenses that law enforcement officials typically offer to justify financial surveillance of wire transfers.

Instead, he was indicted in early July on a single count of reentering the country without authorization after having been previously deported to Mexico. This was the sole basis for the arrest w