Local police departments in Texas are using school district security cameras to assist federal immigration enforcement under Donald Trump’s crackdown, according to an investigation by the 74. Audit logs from six Texas school districts show that police searched a national database of automated license plate reader data, including from school cameras, for immigration-related purposes.
The cameras, manufactured by Flock Safety, capture license plate numbers and timestamps, which are uploaded to a cloud server. Schools can share this data with police agencies through Flock’s network. Records reveal that over one month, more than 3,100 police agencies conducted over 733,000 searches on cameras from the Alvin independent school district, with immigration-related reasons cited 620 times by 30 agencies.
School police officers typically use the cameras for issues like road rage or vandalism, but the data shows they are also being used to help the Department of Homeland Security enforce immigration laws. The Huffman independent school district’s campus police chief granted border patrol access to its Flock cameras in May.
Critics argue this repurposing of campus surveillance technology intended for student safety raises ethical concerns. “This just really underscores how far-reaching these systems can be,” said Phil Neff of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, noting that out-of-state agencies using school cameras for immigration searches “strains any sense of the appropriate use of this technology.”
