Local police aid ICE by tapping school cameras amid Trump's immigration crackdown

Police departments across the US are quietly leveraging school district security cameras to assist Donald Trump's mass immigration enforcement campaign, an investigation by the 74 reveals.

Hundreds of thousands of audit logs spanning a month show police are searching a national database of automated license plate reader data, including from school cameras, for immigration-related investigations.

The audit logs originate from Texas school districts that contract with Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company that manufactures artificial intelligence-powered license plate readers and other surveillance technology. Flock's cameras are designed to capture license plate numbers, timestamps and other identifying details, which are uploaded to a cloud server. Flock customers, including schools, can decide whether to share their information with other police agencies in the company's national network.