ICE is now tracking nearly 54,000 immigrants via ankle monitors

ICE is now tracking nearly 54,000 immigrants through GPS-enabled ankle monitors — up from about 17,000 in early 2025 — according to figures disclosed by private prison corporation The GEO Group, whose subsidiary BI Inc. runs ICE's Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP). Overall ISAP enrollment has stayed roughly stable at about 184,000 participants, but ICE has been reassigning people from lower-cost check-in methods — the SmartLINK facial-recognition phone app bills roughly $0.96 per participant per day — to ankle monitors, which generate more than $2 per participant per day, boosting GEO Group's revenue. The shift follows a June 2025 ICE directive encouraging officers to place more supervised immigrants on ankle monitors rather than app or telephone check-ins.