DHS rejection of automatic body-camera activation for ICE remains in dispute two weeks after GAO audit

By Renata Vos

WASHINGTON — Two weeks after a congressional watchdog faulted how Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement run their body-worn camera programs, the Homeland Security Department’s refusal to adopt automatic camera activation for ICE remains the main point of dispute, and legislation promised by the House Homeland Security Committee’s top Democrat had not appeared in Congress.gov records as of Tuesday.

The department has defended its position on privacy and operational grounds. In written comments to the Government Accountability Office, DHS said that for ICE, automatic activation presents operational risks, including inadvertent or false activations during routine movement, according to the GAO report. “Such triggers could result in the unauthorized recording of sensitive interactions with informants or victims, or the recording of bystanders engaged in protected First Amendment activities in areas where camera use is restricted,” the department wrote, as quoted by The Washington Sun, which obtained the report before its release. DHS agreed with the report’s six other recommendations and described planned actions on them. Jeffrey Bobich, the department’s executive director of financial management and systems, said in the Aug. 28 response that all ICE field offices had received body camera equipment as of Aug. 5, the Sun reported.

What GAO found

The report, GAO-26-108157, is dated Sept. 15 and was released Oct. 14. It was requested by Homeland Security ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), subcommittee ranking members J. Luis Correa (D-Calif.) and Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). GAO interviewed officials and camera users at 10 field locations, six in person and four virtually.

CBP began deploying cameras in fiscal 2021 and ICE in fiscal 2024. As of June 2026, CBP had about 11,500 cameras in use, nearly all with the Border Patrol; as of April 2026, ICE had about 4,800, split almost evenly between Enforcement and Removal Operations and Homeland Security Investigations.

GAO found that neither component has updated its program plan since 2022 for CBP and 2024 for ICE. In that time, CBP raised the number of cameras it plans to deploy from about 20,000 to about 49,000, and both agencies paused further deployment in 2025, CBP in February and ICE in June. GAO said the pause followed a January 2025 executive order rescinding the prior directive that federal law enforcement agencies require cameras to be worn and activated, after which the components “chose not to allocate funds” for their program offices to continue deployment. Both programs are at least a year behind schedule, and ICE’s 2024 plan was not adjusted for a July 2025 hiring surge of about 12,000 personnel, GAO wrote.

The agencies also lack results-oriented performance goals, GAO found, and most offices have no operational guidance on when to use cameras in their particular settings. CBP’s cameras use automated activation triggers; ICE relies on agents turning cameras on manually.

GAO said it “maintain[s] that additional controls are needed,” noting that DHS’s response “did not include information on environments where automated activation could be effective.”

What Congress has funded

GAO traced the programs’ funding through annual spending laws. Explanatory statements specified CBP body-camera amounts of $21 million in fiscal 2020, $14.44 million in 2021, $20 million in 2022 and $21.05 million in 2023, plus $12 million for ICE in 2023. The April 2026 DHS appropriations law, Public Law 119-86, provided $20 million in Section 109 for “the procurement, deployment, and operations of body-worn cameras” for immigration enforcement officers. GAO noted that the 2025 reconciliation law did not specifically require further camera purchases. The June 2026 Secure America Act lists body-worn cameras among permitted uses of ICE’s $31.075 billion appropriation in Section 202, without setting an amount.

Lawmakers’ responses

Thompson said in an Oct. 14 release that ICE’s position is “completely unacceptable” and that he would introduce legislation “in the coming days” to require automatic activation on all DHS body cameras. Congress.gov’s list of his sponsored bills showed no such measure as of Tuesday. Correa said federal immigration agents had shot at least 25 people since January. The Washington Sun reported that the lack of footage from field stops has drawn bipartisan scrutiny after shootings in Houston and Biddeford, Maine, in July and in Austin in September, and that DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said agents involved in a shooting in New York City earlier this month were wearing cameras that were turned on.

Who was contacted

The Inquisitor asked DHS, ICE, CBP, GAO’s Heather MacLeod, Chairman Andrew Garbarino’s committee staff and Rep. Thompson’s committee staff for comment, and will update this story with any response.

Photo: Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. Brendan O’Hara, House Creative Services, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).