Head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement: We don’t use stingrays to locate undocumented immigrants

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. Sen Wyden has also recently sent a similar letter to the Department of Justice, which has not yet responded.