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Alternatives to detention aren't new; ICE's program officially began in 2004 and officials began using the SmartLINK app in 2018. The agency relies on BI Inc., a subsidiary of private prison company GEO Group, to run it.
Now the program is expanding -- and fast. It's more than doubled in size since President Biden took office, according to an analysis of government data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.
"It continues to show just a massive amount of growth," says Austin Kocher, a researcher at TRAC.
And all that growth, Kocher says, can be attributed to the increasing use of SmartLINK, an app that requires users to send photos of themselves as a form of checking in with authorities.
Currently more than 185,000 people are being monitored by SmartLINK -- about three-quarters of those enrolled in the ATD program, ICE says.
That's a steep increase from less than three years ago, according to Kocher's analysis, when SmartLINK monitored less than 6,000 people for ICE.
In April and May, Kocher says, about 1,000 people a day were being enrolled in the program.
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