USPS Is Getting In on Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Crackdowns

Under the Trump administration, the federal government is rapidly growing its surveillance dragnet for immigration crackdowns. In addition to high-tech expansions, the new administration is roping in as many federal agencies as possible. On Tuesday, a new report indicated that immigration officials are now receiving assistance from one unlikely source: The post office.

Two sources confirmed with the Washington Post that the United States Postal Service’s law enforcement joined a Department of Homeland Security task force to locate and deport undocumented people. Known as the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, it’s a full-blown law enforcement agency so its officers can carry guns, make arrests, execute federal search warrants, and more.

On Sunday, a video from a drug enforcement raid in Colorado Springs shows postal inspectors participating alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service. The DEA’s Rocky Mountain Division confirmed that 114 undocumented people were arrested. Although this sort of interagency cooperation isn’t actually unusual for the agency, they have taken things a step further. According to the Post, immigration officials also want access to USPIS data, which includes tracking information, credit card data, IP addresses, and more.

USPIS cooperation with immigration crackdowns comes amidst Trump’s efforts to dismantle the postal service. Per the Post, an internal email from USPIS about a recent meeting with immigration officials stated, “We want to play well in the sandbox.” One source told the outlet, “They seem to be trying to placate Trump by getting involved with things they think he’d like. But it’s complete overreach. This is the Postal Service. Why are they involved in deporting people?”

A spokesperson for DHS told the Post that the USPIS’ involvement is a “key part of ensuring law enforcement has the resources they need to fulfill President Trump’s promise to the American people to remove violent criminals from our streets, dismantle drug and human trafficking operations and make America safe again.”

🥂 Part of busting up the underground nightclub in Colorado Springs included the arrest of 114 illegal aliens.#DEA partners and @DHSgov placed patrons (in the U.S. illegally) on buses for processing and likely eventual deportation. https://t.co/aLyQUdy5YN

— DEARockyMountain (@DEAROCKYMTNDiv) April 27, 2025

In addition to requesting data access, immigration officials want to take advantage of USPIS’s mail cover program. As part of it, postal personnel or inspectors record information on the outside of mail upon request and turn it over to other agencies. This information is really only supposed to be shared to investigate crimes but last year, a Congressional probe revealed that USPIS fulfills 97 percent of requests.

For immigration officials, USPIS is a perfect partner because it faces fewer outside restrictions around monitoring mail communications compared to electronic methods like email. The mail cover program also (barely) skirts the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizures. Although most searches require warrants, that doesn’t apply to anything in plain view, like the name, addresses, and other details on the outside of mail.

“It is deeply concerning that the U.S. Postal Service appears to be operating as a surveillance arm of federal immigration enforcement without clear legal authority or oversight,” Kia Hamadanchy, senior counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, told Gizmodo via email. “The ability of the postal service to operate the mail cover program must be subject to strict transparency, accountability, and legal safeguards. Using postal records in this fashion to facilitate deportations raises serious constitutional and civil liberties concerns.”

Years ago, a bipartisan group of senators actually echoed Hamadanchy’s concerns. In 2023, they sent a letter to Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale requesting that the USPIS “reform its policies to require a federal judge to approve any surveillance of Americans’ mail” to protect from “unchecked government monitoring”. The senators noted that USPIS can only conduct this level of surveillance because it “operates according to [its] own rules with no supervision by the courts.”

“However, USPIS is neither required by law to conduct mail cover monitoring for other agencies, nor to keep it secret from the targets,” the senators wrote. “USPIS is choosing to provide this surveillance service and to keep postal customers in the dark about the fact that they have been subjected to monitoring.”

In response, Barksdale claimed that the senators’ concerns were misunderstandings and that the program “[is] not a large-scale surveillance apparatus” due to the USPIS’ internal regulations. However, the agency’s partnership with anti-immigration efforts shows that either the USPIS’s internal regulations weren’t actually all that or the agency is fine to throw people under the bus to save itself.