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Immigrants and an abortion patient tracked by outside agencies via Minnesota license plate cameras

Jun 15, 2026·Location: Minneapolis, MN

Immigrants and an abortion patient tracked by outside agencies via Minnesota license plate cameras
Photo via eff.org

State and local law enforcement agencies conducted thousands of searches of Flock Safety automated license plate reader networks for immigration enforcement purposes, with ICE officials asking local departments to run lookups on its behalf, according to reporting by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Star Tribune and FinePrint. Audit logs show more than 2,600 searches of St. Louis Park, Minnesota's cameras by 134 outside agencies between January 2025 and April 2026, about 95 percent of them from outside the state, including 1,331 tied to Homeland Security Investigations and 829 to ICE directly; one Michigan department ran 105 deportation-warrant lookups over three and a half months. A Texas deputy also searched the cameras for a woman who had an abortion, a legal procedure in Minnesota. Flock has said it has no contract with ICE, and St. Louis Park has since restricted outside access to its cameras, saying the searches did not reflect the city's values; at least 30 localities nationwide have deactivated cameras or canceled Flock contracts since the beginning of 2025.

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