ICE: We don’t use stingrays to locate undocumented immigrants

Enlarge / Thomas Homan, Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, seen here during a February 2016 Senate hearing. (credit: Al Drago/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images News)

The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency charged with deportations, has confirmed in a new letter that it does not use cell-site simulators, also known as stingrays, to locate undocumented immigrants.

In the August 16 letter, which was sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), acting Director Thomas Homan wrote that, since October 2015, ICE has followed similar guidelines put in place by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security a month earlier, which require a warrant before deploying a stingray.

Homan was responding to an earlier letter than Senator Wyden sent to him. The Oregon Democrat has also recently sent a similar letter to the Department of Justice, which has not yet responded. That August 1 letter states: "We are concerned that the Department may not be adequately disclosing to courts important details about how stingrays work and their impact on innocent Americans."

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