The Border Patrol is using a secretive program to track license plates everywhere in the country
The short version: An immigration law firm's video spotlights how Border Patrol taps nationwide Flock ALPR data with vague 'suspicious' criteria and near-zero public accountability.
Our Take
Credit to Lincoln-Goldfinch Law for putting a plain-language spotlight on something we've been flagging for a while: Flock's camera network isn't just a local speed-trap tool anymore, it's become a backdoor pipeline for federal agencies like CBP to pull location data on ordinary drivers hundreds of miles from any border. The firm's framing is right — nobody outside these agencies has a clear definition of what counts as 'suspicious.' A truck with a trailer, a back road, a pattern of travel near a checkpoint — vague categories like these are exactly how mass surveillance gets normalized under the banner of narrow law enforcement.
What makes this especially dangerous is the sharing layer. Once a plate reader logs your car, that data doesn't stay with the town that installed the camera. It moves through networks, gets queried by agencies with wildly different missions, and creates a permanent, searchable record of where you've been — regardless of whether you've ever been suspected of anything. That's not targeted policing, that's dragnet tracking, and the lack of transparency around who's pulling this data and why is the whole problem in a nutshell.
If you want to see how far this has spread in your own area, check our camera map to find Flock installations near you, and if you're ready to push back, our take-action page has concrete steps for pressuring local officials to pull the plug on these contracts.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Lincoln-Goldfinch Law - Abogados De Inmigración, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.