Quiz

Question 8

Have you ever applied for and received a US visa, like a student visa, tourism visa, or work visa?

Because you obtained a U.S. visa

Applying for an immigrant or non-immigrant visa means that you are “continuously vetted” by CBP’s National Targeting Center against a “wide array” of databases. The results from that screening will end up in one or more of the Department of State’s and/or DHS databases.

Every visa applicant also has to submit law enforcement records from one or more countries. The Department of State’s analysts can conduct extensive background checks for past criminalization or being labeled high-risk according to database criteria.

Databases that you may have records in include:

To see what databases would track you if your answer had been no, click the no button.

If you have applied for a U.S. visa but were denied, rejected applications with vetting comments are shared among agencies. These include DHS, the FBI, the Department of Defense (DOD), and other federal agencies that are involved in the visa and passport review and approval process.

To see what databases would track you if your answer had been yes, click the yes button.

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Of the 13 monsters in this quiz, it looks like your data may be tracked by the following:

But there may be other smaller surveillance databases not covered in the quiz.

You may be asking yourself "What can we do?".

What now?

To learn more, check out the full From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition Report.

Learn how you can Take Action

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More about this quiz

There is no single database that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can consult to find a list of everyone they are able to deport.

As a workaround, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cross-checks many existing datasets. They use information from international visitors, visa holders, and arrest and conviction records. These datasets are not always reliable  at determining legal status. They are also deeply flawed, racist, and xenophobic.

More and more, DHS buys data from corporations to supplement their own databases. They can buy archives of location history, face and voice recognition files, and iris scans. Artificial intelligence tools use this data to predict behavior and infer relationships between people, places, and objects (like vehicles).

We spent months researching databases and data-sharing. But contractors and technologies change all the time, and many government data systems are shrouded in secrecy. We do not claim that the databases listed here make up a complete list, nor is it possible to make that list. Rather, we hope that this tool hints at the tangled and complex web of data extraction and criminalization.

The fight against migrant exploitation, racist border securitization, and deportation is a fight against data criminalization. It is a fight for collective self-determination and data liberation. Read more in our full report.