OpEd: The Cost of Convenience: Why Local Leaders Must Scrutinize Surveillance Deals (Chicago, IL) — For the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of working across Illinois to ensure Latino families have a stronger voice, greater opportunity, and a real path to a better future. As my community has been targeted by the Trump Administration’s immigration raids, the tactics and tools being used by ICE and DHS should be a warning to all. Every time you drive by a license plate reading camera, interact with a local police officer for a missing tail light, or even drop something off for your neighbor – cameras are watching.
Surveillance companies are increasingly using AI to leverage facial recognition and create a real-time map of you. This information has been shared with federal agencies like ICE and DHS to go after immigrants, the ACLU has raised concerns about police agencies tracking protesters, and now these companies are collecting this data on everyone. Regardless of if “you have done something wrong” or not.
One example of surveillance technology embedding itself into our communities is Axon Enterprises. A little known company that dominates the TASER and body camera market. While they brand themselves as a public safety company that creates a product for police accountability, the reality is far less focused on public safety.
Axon is also a major partner of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. The company holds millions and millions in contracts with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the financial ties run even deeper – ICE recently posted a $220 million TASER procurement proposal written so specifically it could only be fulfilled by Axon. Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump purchased between $1 million and $5 million in Axon stock in February 2026, two weeks before the contract was posted.
The company is testing facial recognition software in their body cameras after previously promising not to. Multiple members of their AI ethics board quit over the controversial technology that has serious implications, especially for Black and brown communities AI has proven to have bias against. And this isn’t the only way the company is using AI. Axon’s “AI-era plan” includes AI police report drafting (if it can’t do your kid’s homework, it shouldn’t be writing documents that could change someone’s life) and Fusus, a platform integrating cameras, drone feeds, and private sources like Amazon Rings.
This company is silently creeping into our lives, creating more and more data on all of us. And ultimately, Axon will own all of it.
While Axon promises its local systems are walled off from federal access, I have helped too many families navigate the consequences of broken promises to take that assurance at face value. Federal agents routinely obtain local surveillance data through informal officer-to-officer channels that bypass internal rules entirely. And the expansion of body cameras on agents, paired with their AI facial recognition software, creates searchable biometric surveillance for all of us.
On a recent drive, I noticed one of these cameras. Curious about how they were creeping into our lives, we submitted an Illinois FOIA for a camera at the intersection of East 55th and East Ave in McCook, IL. The city had no permit records for the camera, but it is there collecting information on us. Axon logo and everything.
When cities across Illinois contract with Axon for body cameras, automated license plate readers, and AI-powered evidence software, they are deepening a relationship with the company that equips these immigration operations and skirts the rules and regulations that protect our privacy and actually keep us safe.
As a lifelong advocate for immigrant families, I am calling on Illinois officials to scrutinize these contracts before they are signed. Do not simply accept technology companies’ vague promises of privacy and security. The communities I work with have already paid too high a price for decisions made without their safety in mind. And while Axon is watching us, it is certainly not looking out for us.
OpEd: The Cost of Convenience: Why Local Leaders Must Scrutinize Surveillance Deals
