MAGA Melts Down Over Trump ‘Deep State' Deportation Deal
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'.
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.
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