When federal immigration agents arrested Melvin Varela Perez in the Omaha area on July 9, they were quick to thank the local cops and other federal officials who helped crack the case.

The Douglas County sheriff. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. All had assisted in the search for the Salvadoran man who’d been labeled an MS-13 kingpin by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.

But they didn’t mention one organization: Flock Safety, a private company whose surveillance cameras have quietly become an important piece of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Nebraska and across the U.S.

Search logs obtained by the Flatwater Free Press through open records requests show Flock systems in the state’s two largest counties, Douglas and Lancaster, recorded more than 20 immigration-related searches, combined, from January through June. The records also show that multiple out-of-state agencies, granted access by local law enforcement, have used cameras in Nebraska for immigration enforcement during that time period.

The searches appear to represent a growing use for the cameras, which local law enforcement agencies across the country have used for years to investigate car thefts, assaults, drug sales and traffic violations. Hundreds of the company’s cameras monitor traffic, day in and day out, in areas across Nebraska.

Authorities have long argued that the cameras are a valuable tool. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said searches of their system are always connected to criminal cases and not solely for non-criminal immigration violations. Among them: Flock searches that led ICE to Perez and another man the agency says is affiliated with MS-13.

“We have to use technology to our advantage, because the criminals are using technology to their advantage already,” said Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson. “We can’t allow the criminals to use drones and Teslas while we’re still hitching a horse to a post.”

In response to recent revelations in other states, Flock said it aims to give law enforcement agencies “tools to uphold public safety, while enabling accountability and transparency.” How those agencies decide to use that technology is entirely up to local officials, who ultimately must answer to the communities they serve, the company said.

But even before this latest development, the technology — often referred to as automated license plate recognition cameras — has sparked privacy concerns from organizations like the ACLU of Nebraska. Joy Kathurima, policy counsel for ACLU of Nebraska, said she was not aware of immigration-related searches in Nebraska prior to an inquiry from Flatwater.

“We’ve always been concerned about the intrusion on privacy of Nebraskans, whether those Nebraskans have legal status or not,” Kathurima said. “And so it’s not surprising, but it is incredibly concerning that they are utilizing them for immigration enforcement.”

When Douglas County Sheriff’s Deputy Matthew Baber pulled over Rene Escobar Ochoa on Interstate 80 in early July, the reason was fairly benign: Escobar Ochoa hadn’t signaled before switching lanes in his blue pickup truck.

But then Baber ran Escobar Ochoa’s name through EPIC, a law enforcement database based in Texas, and the situation quickly changed. The database flagged the driver as a member of MS-13 on an active watchlist.

Baber didn’t have the authority to arrest Escobar Ochoa based on the watchlist; that would have required a warrant. So the deputy let him go, alerted federal authorities, and officers turned to an increasingly popular policing tool.

Hidden in plain sight, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office’s license plate readers use cameras and machine learning to capture vehicle details, including make, model, color and license plate numbers. These details are then compiled in a massive database ripe for searching.

“That data showed that particular vehicle had been in the Omaha metro area … since at least mid- to late June,” Hanson said. “Meaning, importantly, that this vehicle was not in transit from one part of the country to the other, and that really allowed our federal partners and (Nebraska State Patrol) … to narrow down on where this individual was locally in order to take him into custody.”

Agents got more than they bargained for. In addition to Escobar Ochoa, they also discovered Perez, the “kingpin,” at the same location.

Hanson said that under the Trump administration, federal authorities have greater license to take action against undocumented immigrants wanted in connection with crimes, like Escobar Ochoa.  

“I can tell you that under the previous administration,” Hanson said, “there were many times that our investigators were very frustrated because we had repeat offenders who we knew had immigration status which would otherwise render them eligible for deportation, and therefore stop their crime spree, and the federal government refused to engage in the deportation process.”

Each time a law enforcement officer searches the Flock network, the search is preserved in an audit.

The Flatwater Free Press analyzed audits provided by seven Nebraska agencies — which included millions of searches by hundreds of agencies over a six-month period — by filtering for terms including “immigration,” “ICE” and “final removal.”

The analysis revealed two Nebraska agencies — the sheriff’s offices in Lancaster and Douglas — had searches with those terms.

In Douglas County, Hanson said, approved ICE/HSI analysts have access to the Flock database maintained by the Sheriff’s Office. Search logs show an analyst, identified as “J. Cow,” provided “immigration” as the reason for 20 searches since January. “Final removal” was listed as the reason for another search by the same analyst.

Little information has been released about most of these searches. Hanson said ICE and HSI assured him the searches weren’t purely for civil immigration violations — the person they were seeking had an underlying criminal offense.

“They were specifically checks that were relating to labor trafficking, human trafficking, wanted individuals — someone who’s wanted for an immigration crime specifically, or someone who is a criminal that Homeland Security or ICE is pursuing that has an immigration nexus,” he said.

Hanson said he has asked federal agents to give more information on the nature of their searches in the future.

ICE declined an interview request and did not answer emailed questions about the nature of the searches.

“ICE uses data-driven, fact-based intelligence to identify, arrest and remove criminal aliens from the United States,” spokesperson Tanya Roman wrote in an emailed statement. “It partners with local, tribal, state and federal law enforcement agencies to keep our communities safe and preserve national security.”

In Lancaster County, an individual identified as “J. Hud” listed “immigration_Temperly” as the reason for several searches on June 2. Justin Temperly is a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security who was involved in the raid on Glenn Valley Foods later that month.

The office declined multiple interview requests and declined to answer questions seeking further information on the searches and its policies regarding immigration searches.

Kelsey Cruz, spokesperson for the office, wrote in an email that the Sheriff’s Office serves in a supporting role with immigration-related incidents, assisting when its resources are requested by federal partners. The searches were “part of an ongoing investigation in which LSO was requested to assist,” Cruz wrote.

Kathurima, the policy counsel for ACLU of Nebraska, said the distinction between criminal and civil immigration offenses can get hazy. Improper entry to the country can be charged criminally, as can illegal reentry after a deportation proceeding or harboring of an undocumented immigrant.

Her concerns are compounded by the lack of information on what, exactly, the searches were seeking.

Data obtained by the Deportation Data Project shows ICE arrests of individuals without a criminal record have risen nationally, and as of August 10, 70% of those in ICE detention had no criminal conviction.

Kathurima said if agencies are willing to give federal agents access to their Flock system, but won’t tell the public how much information they’re sharing and how it’s being used, that’s cause for concern.

“Just because, right now, they’re using it for immigration enforcement mechanisms, doesn’t mean that they won’t use it for something else or in another way,” she said.

At least one agency in Nebraska has no intention of sharing its Flock data for immigration enforcement. Grand Island Police Chief Kevin Denney said his department has never conducted an immigration-related search for federal authorities — and he doesn’t see them doing so in the future.

“We’re local, and as a police chief here in Grand Island, like most police chiefs in local jurisdictions, we’re responsible for the people in our jurisdiction,” he said. “We don’t enforce federal law, which means our focus is the safety of our community.”

Denney’s job as chief takes him to a lot of places in Grand Island — “even Spanish Mass at our St. Mary’s Catholic Church” — and each time, he has a message for the residents his department serves.

“We were sworn to uphold the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Nebraska. But our focus is to keep people safe,” he said. “When we take reports, when we stop people for traffic violations, none of our reports ask if they are a U.S. citizen.”

The federal government does not have a formal contract with Flock Safety, though the company has offered limited pilot programs with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations. Those pilots were paused in late August after 404 Media revealed some law enforcement agencies weren’t aware they were sharing data with CBP.

Limited federal access means local collaboration is generally needed if federal agencies want to access data collected by the company’s cameras. But that doesn’t necessarily mean ICE or other federal agencies need direct buy-in from every community that uses Flock.

That’s because of the technology’s Statewide and National Lookup networks, which allow law enforcement to search full plate numbers across thousands of cameras from other agencies that have opted into the networks.

The network audit for the Hall County Sheriff’s Office, for example, recorded more than 424,000 searches of its cameras in April. Of those, only 211 were conducted by local deputies.

And while Hall County didn’t search its systems for immigration-related offenses, nine other agencies did, including Florida Highway Patrol, Texas Department of Public Safety and the Mesa Police Department in Arizona. And an abbreviated network audit from Grand Island, as well, showed several out-of-state agencies searching for immigration-related offenses.

The tool has drawn scrutiny in other states, including Illinois, which prohibits outside agencies from using its automated license plate recognition data for immigration or abortion-related cases. Earlier this year, reporting by 404 Media revealed multiple out-of-state agencies had done just that by querying a network owned by the Danville Police Department.

ICE’s use of the technology didn’t surprise Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University professor who researches the U.S. immigration system. Modern surveillance networks like Flock’s are changing how we think about law enforcement jurisdiction, he said.

“Globalization destroys geography,” Kocher said. “We can be in communication with anyone, anywhere, anytime. It’s similar with law enforcement, where the nature of these data systems means there aren’t always really strict firewalls around geography and jurisdiction, especially once you are buying into private systems on the open market.”

In June, Flock CEO and Founder Garrett Langley released a lengthy statement defending the company and clarifying what he described as misinformation about Flock’s role.

“In some states and jurisdictions, local law enforcement work with federal authorities to enforce immigration offenses,” Langley said. “In other states and jurisdictions, that is illegal per state law or considered socially unacceptable. The point is: it is a local decision. Not my decision, and not Flock’s decision.”

He pointed toward efforts the company has taken to abide by individual state limitations, including shutting off National Lookup network access in California, which banned its agencies from sharing data with out-of-state agencies or federal authorities.

“Each city should lay out acceptable and unacceptable use cases for LPR (license plate recognition), as determined by the laws and values of its jurisdiction,” Langley said.

Nebraska’s law governing the use of automated license plate readers does not prohibit searches for immigration offenses or the sharing of data with federal agencies. The Nebraska Automatic License Plate Reader Act, passed into law in 2018, regulates who can access plate data, mandates annual reporting to the state and outlines acceptable uses.

Former State Sen. Matt Hansen, a Democrat from Lincoln, who introduced the law, said the list of acceptable uses was an attempt to capture the ways in which law enforcement was using the technology at the time.

“I’ll be honest, any sort of immigration use just wasn’t anything we thought of at the time,” he said.

While immigration enforcement is not listed as a use, other activities that may be associated with an immigration case, such as searching for someone with a warrant, are allowed under the act.

Kathurima said it may be time to consider updating Nebraska’s automatic license plate reader privacy act to better ensure “there’s a balance between protecting folks’ needs for privacy, while balancing that against whatever legitimate governmental interests there are.”

Federally, the use of Flock Safety cameras for immigration enforcement is receiving fresh scrutiny. In August, two Democratic members of Congress launched a formal investigation of Flock, citing departments using the  technology for immigration enforcement even in jurisdictions where it’s banned.

Locally, a member of Nebraska’s congressional leadership remains supportive of law enforcement using the technology.

“I support the work of the Douglas and Lancaster County Sheriffs to uphold the rule of law and to enforce our nation’s immigration policies,” U.S. Rep. Mike Flood wrote in a statement. “This seems to be an appropriate tool that will incentivize more people to respect our laws and to stop entering our country illegally.”

In a statement to 404 Media, Flock said it appreciated the opportunity to work with members of Congress.

For Hanson, the Douglas County sheriff, the issue remains cut and dry.

“I don’t appreciate people victimizing people in our community, especially if you’re lucky enough to be in this country without legal status,” he said. “And I think individuals that victimize innocent people in our community should be removed if they’re not a legal citizen.”

This story was originally published by Flatwater Free Press, an independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories in Nebraska that matter. Read the article at: https://flatwaterfreepress.org/license-plate-readers-in-nebraska-help-ic...