Many memorable journeys start with a map. Maps have been around for ages, guiding humanity on its way in grand style. Maps have helped sailors cross oceans, caravans traverse deserts, and armies march into the pages of history. Maps have been staple tools of exploration, survival, and sovereignty. And today? Today, they’re on our devices, and we use them to find literally everything, including the nearest taco truck, coffee shop, and gas station. Yet, today’s maps don’t just show us where we are and where we are going. Increasingly, they also tell someone else the gist of who we are. What does that mean exactly? It means not all maps are made for us. Some maps are made about us. Case in point—the objective of Palantir’s ELITE demands our immediate attention. ELITE is a digital map used by ICE to identify neighborhoods, households, and individuals for targeted enforcement, drawing on data that was never meant to become ammunition.
No, Palantir’s ELITE is not strictly limited to use by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but its primary and reported use is specifically for immigration enforcement. ELITE, which stands for Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement, is a software tool/app developed by Palantir for ICE to find, classify, and prioritize presumably illegal immigrants for deportation. It was rolled out in late 2025, with reports of use starting in September 2025. Essentially, ELITE is a map that pulls data from across federal systems—including agencies like Medicaid and Health Department information—and uses it to compile dossiers on people, complete with address confidence scores and patterns of residence density. It tells ICE agents where individuals live and how likely they are to be there so that ICE can prioritize “target-rich environments” for raids.
In other words, data that was once siloed for entirely different purposes—health records, public assistance, demographic lists—is now being fused into a single dashboard designed to help federal agents decide where to show up and who to detain. While no one wants criminal illegal aliens freely roaming the streets of our nation, the result of the operation is not “analytics”—it is anticipatory policing dressed as operational efficiency. One might think the scenario sounds like something only seen in dystopian fiction, and others agree. Advocates for freedom have pointed out that ELITE’s model resembles (in unsettling ways) systems designed to anticipate behavior rather than respond to actual wrongdoing. Beyond that, what else could it be used for, and when will that next step begin?
Hellbound and Down 