Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) division have been cut off from a financial surveillance database long used to track wire transfers between the U.S. and Mexico, according to disclosures reported by The Intercept.
The Transaction Record Analysis Center, or TRAC, was created in 2014 through a settlement with Western Union and holds records of hundreds of millions of transfers. For years, civil liberties advocates have warned that ICE would use TRAC for deportations, despite official claims that it was intended only for money laundering and drug trafficking investigations.
