Revealed: how US immigration uses fake social media profiles across investigations

Records from the Department of Homeland Security show it sought to expand undercover operations online despite pushback from Facebook

US immigration officials sought to expand their abilities to monitor and surveil social media activity and allowed officers to create and use fake social media profiles in a wide range of operations, including covertly researching the online presence of people seeking immigration benefits, new documents show.

Authorities within several Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), have repeatedly discussed using aliases", or undercover online accounts for investigations, according to records obtained through an open records request by the civil rights non-profit Brennan Center for Justice and shared with the Guardian. Officials have also expressed concern about social media sites' policies that prohibit the use of fake profiles and discussed bypassing those rules.