The tech billionaire who bankrolled J.D. Vance’s political rise is at the centre of a new MAGA war over fresh plans to use Big Brother surveillance to deport illegal immigrants.
As protests rage in Los Angeles over Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, some of the president’s most loyal supporters are outraged over a “deep state” contract awarded to Palantir Technologies, the controversial data mining company co-founded by venture capitalist and Vance campaign donor Peter Thiel.
Government documents seen by the Daily Beast show the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded Palantir the $30 million contract to develop a new surveillance platform known as “ImmigrationOS” to help the agency identify and arrest illegal immigrants, make it easier to deport people, and track and report self-deportations with “near real-time visibility”.
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Trump acolyte Laura Loomer embraced the idea, posting on X this week: “Time to deploy @PalantirTech to Los Angeles to deal with the illegals. You know you’d love to see it.”
But the right-wing provocateur faced a fierce backlash online from people ideologically opposed to government surveillance. Some viewed Palantir, which is named after the “seeing stones” in The Lord of the Rings, as a tool of the Deep State; others warned Palantir “won’t stop there.”
“Laura, I don’t care what the excuse is. One CANNOT in any way, shape or form claim to be a Conservative or Patriot and support this,” replied John Sabal, founder of Texas-based conservative event group ‘The Patriot Voice’, whose outraged response was one of thousands.
“It is literally antithetical to the notion of “smaller government” and IN FAVOR of a big government totalitarian system.”
Palantir has until September to develop a prototype of the ImmigrationOS software.
Not having it, ICE warned, “severely limits” its ability to expedite Trump’s deportation plans and target the gangs MS-13 and Tren de Aragua.
But the plan is particularly contentious because it comes after reports that the administration may also be using Palantir to build a database of personal information on American citizens.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that the Trump administration had expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government, giving it more than $113 million since Trump took office, as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.
“Some of the Palantir stuff that’s going up now–the MAGA base is not happy,” former Trump ally Steve Bannon said in an interview with Chuck Todd released over the weekend.
Far-right nationalist Nick Fuentes was far more scathing in a video posted on X.
“The more disorder there is from the far right and the far left, the more you’re gonna get people begging for Palantir, begging for a mass database of every American, the more you’re going to get people begging for drones and cameras and law enforcement everywhere,” he said. “These dummies are going to ruin it for everyone.”
Thiel is a former PayPal chief executive who hired Vance at his venture capital firm, donated $15 million to his 2022 Ohio Senate campaign, and continues to be a strong supporter of the vice president.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Thiel, ICE, and Palantir for comment.
“Palantir is the only source that can provide the required capabilities and prototype of ImmigrationOS without causing unacceptable delays,” contract documents say.
