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The Veri-Watch system, administered by U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement officers, has gone from a pilot project of just 50 participants to nearly 3,000 issued in just the past year, according to new data from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) of Syracuse University.
The number of these wrist-worn devices issued pales to the 155,000 currently issued SmartLINK smartphone applications that track migrants nationwide. However, the TRAC data shows a new trend emerging by the courts — especially those in South Texas — to issue this new tracking technology.“ICE’s growing use of the VeriWatch is reflected across the country,” TRAC says.
After Harlingen, Seattle and Los Angeles each issued over 360 of the devices in the past year.
Altogether, ICE has over 184,000 migrants currently monitored through the agency’s Alternatives to Detention programs. Devices used to monitor include the SmartLINK phone app, telephonic reporting, VeriWatch and GPS ankle monitoring.
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