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Filtered budget documents by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reveal that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is developing smart glasses with facial recognition for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, capable of identifying individuals in real-time on the streets of the country.
According to the documents, the project includes operational prototypes that will allow agents to access extensive federal databases of biometric information in the field—including facial recognition, gait analysis, and iris scans—without the subjects having been arrested or charged with any crime.
"The project will deliver innovative hardware, such as functional prototypes of smart glasses, to equip agents with real-time access to information and biometric identification capabilities in the field," reads the budget document leaked to the journalist.
The allocated budget amounts to 7.5 million dollars within the expenditure plan for fiscal year 2027 of the DHS Science and Technology Directorate, with a prototype delivery date scheduled for September 2027.
The glasses would have access to the ABIS (Automated Biometric Identification System), which currently contains about 75 million biometric records and can process up to 45,000 submissions per day.
The device would operate in a bidirectional manner: it would not only identify individuals by comparing them against existing databases, but it could also secretly record them to add to new domestic surveillance lists.
An anonymous attorney from the DHS warned Klippenstein that the true scope of the project goes far beyond immigration: "It may present itself as a tool for identifying undocumented immigrants on the streets, but the reality is that progress in this direction impacts all Americans, particularly protesters."
That warning takes on special significance in light of documented incidents. In January 2026, an ICE agent in Maine photographed a legal observer during a deportation operation and told her, "We have a nice database... now you're considered a domestic terrorist."
This type of surveillance over activists and legal observers had already raised alarms. In October 2025, the specialized media outlet 404 Media reported that ICE agents were scanning the faces of people on the street to verify their citizenship, without a warrant or probable cause.
The ICE is now operating the Mobile Fortify application, which allows its agents to access a database of over 1.2 billion facial images while in the field. The new glasses would represent a qualitative leap by integrating that capability discreetly and continuously into the agent's field of vision.
The infrastructure has direct military origins. The HIIDE system, used by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to capture fingerprints, iris scans, and facial photos during patrols and checkpoints, fed into the same ABIS that would now be adapted for domestic use on U.S. soil.
The FBI director, Kash Patel, announced in January 2026 that the agency had "doubled its intelligence production" at its Threat Detection Center, noting "markedly increased biometric matches," in line with the expansion of the federal surveillance apparatus.
Despite the fact that Congress has been notified of the project, no legislator —including the leaders of the National Security Committee Bennie Thompson, Rand Paul, Andrew Garbarino, and Gary Peters— has made public statements, an omission that concerns civil rights organizations that are already litigating against the DHS for unconstitutional surveillance.
On February 23, 2026, the organization Protect Democracy filed the lawsuit Hilton v. Noem et al. against the DHS, ICE, and officials such as Secretary Kristi Noem, alleging unconstitutional surveillance and violations of the First Amendment. Klippenstein summarized the situation with a cutting remark: “The only joke here is Congress.”
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