A tool used by the government to track people who entered the country illegally is being misrepresented on social media as a free gift for smartphones.
Conservative expert Nick Adams shared an April 11 post showing a screenshot of his own tweet from the previous week.
“Joe Biden gives smartphones to people who cross the border illegally,” Adams said. “This is a crime that requires impeachment.”
Former Trump attorney Jay Sekulow and his son Jordan used similar language in discussing smartphones on their Facebook show. These posts suggest that immigrants crossing the border into the United States illegally are given something like an iPhone by the federal government for personal use.
Although smartphones have been distributed to migrants, this social media comment does not provide context around their purpose and limited usability. Immigration officials release phones so they can monitor immigrants released from custody; Phones cannot be used for other purposes, such as going to Facebook or calling friends.
The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s effort to combat false news and misinformation in its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
Fox News reporter Bill Melogen Shared photos On Twitter a day before Adams’ tweet was said to have shown the type of phone given to people being held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Melogen said sources told him that the detainees “the government gave them these phones to track them and allow them to contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
An ICE spokesperson confirmed to PolitiFact that the agency is providing smartphones to some immigrants who have been detained after entering the country illegally. Phones come with some caveats.
The spokesperson said the devices do not have the ability to make personal phone calls, check social media, or surf the Internet.
Instead, the phones are preloaded with an app called SmartLINK as a way to track immigrants who have been released from detention and are awaiting a deportation hearing.
SmartLink is part of ICE’s Alternative Detention program to track “non-citizens who are not in custody at different levels of supervision, using many different monitoring techniques,” an ICE spokesperson said.
The app requires someone to check in with immigration officials by either uploading a selfie or answering a call from a case manager, according to the Associated Press.
The app was first used in 2018 to track about 5,000 people, the Associated Press reported. Now, ICE is using it to monitor more than 125,000 immigrants.
The agency spokesperson said that not all immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement receive a government-issued device.
“If a non-citizen acquires a smartphone of their own, the SmartLINK app can be loaded onto that device,” the spokesperson said.
SmartLINK is developed by BI Inc. , a subsidiary of the private prison company GEO Group. The BI Inc logo appears. On the box marked in Melugin Images.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged the smartphones during an April 8 briefing, saying it’s one of the many ways the government can track someone after they are released from detention.
“Yes, there are phone reports,” she said. “There is SmartLINK, which allows monitoring of participants via a smartphone. There is GPS. This is the set of means that we monitor using modern technology.”
SmartLINK monitoring software has been used by previous administrations, including the Trump administration.
And Adams’ claim that phones are an impeachment crime doesn’t hold much truth either.
The constitution states that the current president can be removed from office if convicted of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours.”
Adams does not provide a reason why smartphone release should be a basis for accountability.
our judgment
A Facebook post claims that immigrants entering the country illegally receive smartphones under President Biden and argues that he should be impeached for it.
Smartphones given to immigrants in custody are used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to track them through a pre-installed app after they are released from custody. Phones cannot be used for anything else.
ICE has been using the phones and tracking app since 2018, before Biden became president.
The post is partially accurate, but it ignores important details and context. We classify it as half true.
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