ICE Awards $25M Biometric Contract for 1,570 Iris Scanners as Detention Surveillance Infrastructure Expands Alongside Physical Capacity

ICE awarded a $25 million contract to BI2 Technologies for 1,570 iris scanner units to be deployed at immigration detention facilities nationwide, as confirmed by immigration data analyst Austin Kocher in his June 6, 2026 weekly newsletter. The biometric expansion is part of ICE's broader digital surveillance and identification infrastructure buildout alongside its unprecedented physical detention expansion. Iris scanners enable rapid biometric identification and persistent tracking of detainees throughout the detention system — including at transfer points between facilities, a practice that has drawn scrutiny as ICE increasingly transfers detainees to remote facilities far from their legal representatives and families. The contract comes as ICE's detention population has exceeded 73,000 — an all-time record — and as the agency has converted warehouses and military facilities into detention centers under the Trump administration's goal of reaching 100,000 detention beds, funded by the $70 billion reconciliation package passed by the Senate on June 5. Civil liberties advocates have raised concerns about the expansion of biometric surveillance applied to a population that is overwhelmingly civil — not criminal — in legal status, with 70.8% of detainees having no criminal conviction. The BI2 Technologies contract is one of multiple biometric and digital surveillance contracts ICE has awarded as part of its 'Detention Re-engineering Initiative.'