School Security Cameras Repurposed for Immigration Investigations
Police departments across the United States are quietly leveraging school district security cameras to assist federal immigration enforcement efforts, according to an investigation by the 74. Hundreds of thousands of audit logs spanning a month reveal that law enforcement agencies are searching a national database of automated license plate reader data, including feeds from school cameras, specifically for immigration-related investigations.
Texas School Districts at Centre of Surveillance Network
The audit logs originate from Texas school districts that contract with Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company manufacturing artificial intelligence-powered license plate readers and surveillance technology. Flock's cameras capture license plate numbers, timestamps, and identifying details, uploading this information to cloud servers. School districts, among other customers, can choose whether to share their data with other police agencies within the company's national network.
Multiple law enforcement leaders have acknowledged conducting searches documented in the audit logs to assist the Department of Homeland Security in enforcing federal immigration laws. This collaboration occurs despite growing unpopularity surrounding the Trump administration's aggressive immigration crackdown, which has significantly impacted educational institutions.
Students and Families Caught in Surveillance Dragnet
Educators, parents, and students as young as five years old have been swept up in these enforcement actions, with immigrant families being targeted during routine school drop-offs and pick-ups. School parking lots have become surveillance hotspots, alongside other community locations where Flock cameras are mounted on utility poles at intersections or along busy commercial streets.
"This just really underscores how far-reaching these systems can be," said Phil Neff, research coordinator at the University of Washington Center for Human Rights. He noted that out-of-state law enforcement agencies conducting searches unrelated to campus safety using school district security cameras "really strains any sense of the appropriate use of this technology."
National Scale of School Surveillance Revealed
Government procurement records show Flock devices have been installed by more than 100 public school systems nationally. Audit logs from six Texas school districts demonstrate that campus camera feeds are captured in a national database accessible to police agencies across the country.
While school police officers typically use Flock cameras to investigate campus incidents like road rage, speeding, vandalism, and criminal mischief, there is no evidence that school districts themselves use the devices for immigration-related purposes. Many districts appear unaware that other agencies are accessing their camera data for such investigations.
Alarming Statistics from Alvin School District
At the 30,000-student Alvin independent school district south of Houston, analysis of public records revealed staggering surveillance activity. Over a one-month period from December 2025 through early January, more than 3,100 police agencies conducted over 733,000 searches on the district's eight Flock cameras.
Of these searches, immigration-related reasons were cited 620 times by 30 law enforcement agencies from states including Florida, Georgia, Indiana, and Tennessee. Flock provides standardized search reasons that agencies must select, with immigration-related categories including "Immigration (civil/administrative)" and "Immigration (criminal)."
Law Enforcement Perspectives on Data Sharing
In Carrollton, Georgia, Lieutenant Blake Hitchcock explained that officers routinely use Flock's nationwide lookup to track suspects outside their jurisdiction. Immigration-related searches appearing in the Alvin school district's audit log by Carrollton police were conducted to assist federal agents at the DHS's request.
"If federal agents ask my office to help them with an immigration case," Hitchcock stated, "we will assist them – no questions asked." He emphasized that Flock searches are typically broad national queries where officers don't select individual cameras, but the system automatically checks every camera shared with the nationwide database.
Company Response and Privacy Concerns
Flock Safety has repeatedly stated that it does not provide DHS with direct access to its cameras and that all data-sharing decisions are made by local customers, including school districts. The company acknowledged running pilot programs with DHS for human trafficking and fentanyl distribution investigations but noted these have been paused following scrutiny and legal challenges.
Adam Wandt, an attorney and associate professor at New York City's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, acknowledged that license plate readers could be invaluable for solving serious crimes but raised significant privacy concerns. He questioned whether broad sharing of school-controlled camera data violates federal student privacy rules and predicted the revelations would "cause significant discussions to be had in the near future within many school districts" contracting with Flock.
The investigation raises fundamental questions about the appropriate use of campus surveillance technology originally intended for student safety, particularly when repurposed to support federal immigration enforcement efforts that directly impact school communities.
