ICE's use of ankle monitors on people in its Alternatives to Detention program has grown from about 17,000 a year ago to nearly 54,000 by August 2026, following a June 2025 internal directive encouraging officers to shift people from phone-based check-ins to GPS tracking. Overall enrollment in the program has stayed roughly stable at 184,000, but monitoring methods have shifted toward ankle devices, which generate more than $2 per participant per day for manufacturer Geo Group compared to about $0.96 for smartphone-based tracking. In June 2026, immigrant rights organizations filed a class action lawsuit alleging ICE adopted a blanket “ankle monitors for all” policy without individualized assessments or meaningful opportunity to contest the requirement. Legal advocates continue to argue the devices impose psychological, economic, and physical harms, and research has found they do not improve compliance with court hearings and check-ins compared with less restrictive monitoring.