A sweeping investigation by The Intercept has uncovered alarming details about a little-known data hub quietly amassing hundreds of millions of financial records — a trove increasingly used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to track down immigrants, including those with no ties to criminal activity.
The Transaction Record Analysis Center (TRAC), a nonprofit database initially created to combat border-related money laundering, has grown into a powerful surveillance tool that privacy advocates say threatens the rights of immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.
Housed in Arizona and fueled by administrative subpoenas that don’t require court approval, TRAC collects data from over 340 million wire transfers of $500 or more, primarily involving transactions between the U.S. and Mexico, as well as several southwestern states. For each transfer, the system logs names, addresses, and a host of other sensitive personal details from both senders and recipients — making it, in the words of ACLU privacy expert Nathan Freed Wessler, “a loaded weapon lying around for the taking.”
Although TRAC was initially positioned as a resource for tracking transnational criminal groups, the database has evolved into something far more expansive. ICE agents have become its top users, at times contributing their own subpoenaed data and even funding the database’s operations. In fact, ICE had nearly 950 active TRAC user accounts as of 2018, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.
“This is a data collection program that disproportionately sweeps in the records of poor people and immigrants,” said Wessler, whose organization has long called for TRAC to be shut down.
TRAC’s reach is only growing. The database has ballooned to include data from 28 financial firms and is now accessed by nearly 700 law enforcement agencies across the country. Despite court challenges and privacy concerns, Arizona’s current Attorney General Kris Mayes has continued the program’s expansion, defending it in federal court and doubling down in the face of a class-action lawsuit that alleged TRAC violates financial privacy laws.
Notably, TRAC was established as a nonprofit entity during a Republican administration but has continued seamlessly under Mayes, a Democrat who once opposed Trump-era immigration crackdowns. Her office insists the subpoenas are legal and necessary for tackling criminal activity. Yet, critics argue the lack of oversight — especially under a second Trump administration prioritizing deportations — poses an immense risk.
“What we’re seeing is the potential for this data to be misused under the guise of immigration enforcement,” said Abigail Kunkler, a legal fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “TRAC offers officials a massive grab-bag of data to root around in, and there isn’t currently any oversight.”
Indeed, TRAC’s origins reflect a bipartisan trend toward expansive surveillance. In 2006, then-Attorney General Terry Goddard subpoenaed Western Union for data under Arizona’s racketeering law. Although a state appellate court later ruled the subpoenas overly broad and “limitless,” a settlement deal in 2010 revived and expanded the data-sharing, setting the precedent for TRAC’s current operations.
That scope widened again in 2014 and beyond, with ICE later stepping in to provide millions of additional records from its own subpoenas — many of which, according to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), likely violated federal law.
TRAC’s structure also blurs the lines between government oversight and nonprofit independence. Though technically a nonprofit, the database has long been staffed and managed by former Arizona attorney general officials, and even now, TRAC’s leadership maintains close ties to the office. Despite claims of independence, The Intercept found evidence of direct coordination between TRAC staff and ICE agents on subpoena strategy and data requests.
When asked about public transparency, Mayes’s office has clammed up. Unlike her predecessor, who released hundreds of internal TRAC documents, Mayes has declined to share recent materials and now argues that doing so would itself violate Arizona law.
This tight-lipped stance has led critics to accuse the attorney general of hiding behind legal technicalities to avoid scrutiny. “It just can’t be that the AGO can shield these public records by creating a nonprofit entity whose board it controlled,” Wessler told The Intercept.
Even as court challenges mount and watchdogs raise red flags, TRAC remains a potent, largely unregulated force — one that privacy experts warn could easily be repurposed as a tool for mass deportation under future political agendas.
“It’s not just about data,” said Sarah Lopez, a migration scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s about the people behind those transactions — people trying to help their families, now being turned into surveillance targets.”
