ICE doubled its use of ankle monitors for legal immigrants in the past year: ‘A very harmful phenomenon’

Agency uses devices, which are uncomfortable and interfere with employment, to push people to self-deport, advocates say

For five years, an asylum-seeking woman attended routine check-ins with immigration authorities without issue. At her most recent appointment in October, she was unexpectedly ordered to strap on an ankle monitor, according to her attorney, Deepa Bijpuria.

Bijpuria, a supervising attorney in the immigration unit of Legal Aid DC, described the client as a single mom who fled her home country because of severe domestic violence, escaping while pregnant with her young daughter.

“[The order] was just such a shift after she’d been complying for years while waiting for her asylum application to be heard and decided,” she said.

Bijpuria said the working mom, who declined an interview and requested anonymity due to her vulnerable situation, lost at least one job after receiving the ankle monitor.

Bijpuria’s client is not the only immigrant to be blindsided by ankle monitor requirements. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses electronic monitoring through its Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program, which was formally implemented in 2004 to ensure that immigrants comply with legal obligations while their cases proceed without being placed in detention.

ATD compliance methods also include mobile apps and telephone check-ins. But Evan Benz, a senior attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said there has been a “market shift” towards utilizing ankle monitors following a June 2025 internal ICE memo directing officers to place the devices on anyone enrolled in the ATD program.

The number of people in the ATD program with ankle monitors nearly doubled in subsequent months, even as overall enrollment in the program remained stable. The total grew from about 24,000 at the time of the memo, a figure reported by the Washington Post, to roughly 42,000 last month, according to a February fiscal year 2026 ICE report.

The increase has not been evenly distributed across the country. The February ICE report revealed that enforcement varies by region, with the DC area having the highest number of people required to wear ankle monitors in the country.