Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is exploring developing a pair of smart glasses that would “supplement” the agency’s facial recognition Mobile Fortify application, which lets officers scan someone’s face to verify their citizenship, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official. Another person who attended a conference where a senior ICE official spoke about the plans also described them to 404 Media. The smart glasses, if they came to fruition, would be yet another technological escalation in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. 404 Media previously revealed ICE and Customs Border Protection (CBP) were using the internal app Mobile Fortify to scan peoples’ faces, and instantaneously query a wide range of government databases to decide whether to detain the person or not. Matthew Elliston, assistant director of Law Enforcement Systems & Analysis at ICE, said in a meeting the plan to create smartglasses was to “supplement Mobile Fortify,” the DHS official said. 404 Media granted the official anonymity as they weren’t permitted to speak to the press. Separately, during the 2026 Border Security Expo which took place this week, Elliston was speaking. A participant asked Elliston what technologies the agency was looking for, according to Kenny Morris from the American Friends Service Committee who attended the conference. Elliston’s answer included “wearable heads up displays,” Morris said. Elliston then said that assaults against ICE officials were up 1400 percent (similar figures have been disputed in press reports), and that smartglasses would let officers be hands-free to respond to any threats, Morris said. 404 Media first heard about ICE’s plan to use smart glasses to supplement Mobile Fortify several months ago from the DHS official. At the time, no written documentation of the plan was available. Last month, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein published a budget document which mentioned DHS’s plan to