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Palantir: Profiting From Deportation

When Stephen Miller entered the White House in January 2025, he held between $100,001 and $250,000 in Palantir Technologies stock — held in his child's brokerage account but legally his per OGE rules. Palantir's stock was up 80% in 2025 — the highest-performing stock in the S&P 500.

Palantir is not a random tech company. It is the primary technology contractor for ICE — the agency Miller directly oversees. In April 2025, Palantir won a $30 million no-bid ICE contract for "ImmigrationOS" — a system providing "near real-time visibility" into migrants' movements, running through September 2027. ImmigrationOS pulls data from passport records, Social Security files, IRS tax data, driver's license scans, and cell phone location records to build comprehensive profiles on individuals and flag them for enforcement. ICE designated Palantir as the sole provider, citing "urgent and compelling need" — no other company was allowed to bid.

In total, Palantir has received over $287 million from ICE alone since 2014, plus a separate $795 million Pentagon contract. By late 2025, DHS reported over 200 active AI use cases — up 37% — with Palantir at the center of the infrastructure. A leaked internal message from Palantir's CTO acknowledged developing tools specifically in response to the administration's enforcement priorities.

Miller kept the stock for nine months after entering government — nine months during which he was making daily decisions that directly affected Palantir's largest government client.

"If he hasn't stepped over the line, he's just on the verge of it." — Don Fox, former head of the Office of Government Ethics

"I just don't think anybody would be comfortable with him keeping this stock." — Virginia Canter, Democracy Defenders Fund

Miller finally dumped the stock in August 2025 — only after POGO (Project on Government Oversight) exposed the conflict publicly. Ethics experts compared it to Dick Cheney's Halliburton arrangement during the Iraq War.

The Employee Revolt

In May 2025, thirteen former Palantir employees published an open letter titled "The Scouring of the Shire" — a Lord of the Rings reference — warning that the company's ethical guardrails were being systematically dismantled. They accused leadership of "normalizing authoritarianism under the guise of a revolution led by oligarchs" and said Palantir was violating its own Code of Conduct by supporting the administration's deportation apparatus.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation went further, asking a federal judge to block the government from using Medicaid data — routed through Palantir's systems — to identify and deport immigrants. Civil liberties groups warned that ImmigrationOS could easily be expanded beyond immigration enforcement to target any American. As the American Immigration Council put it: errors in the system carry "catastrophic consequences" — detention, loss of legal status, or wrongful deportation — with few mechanisms for correction.

Rushmore Ventures: The Family Firm

Before entering government, Miller served as President of Rushmore Ventures LLC, drawing a salary of $202,000. The details of this firm reveal a web of family financial entanglement:

To summarize: Miller ran a firm where his father-in-law was secretary, operating out of his father-in-law's law office, whose clients included the campaign and transition of the President who appointed him. The family financial intertwining and political access operate as a single system.

America First Legal: The Shadow Government Pipeline

Between government stints, Miller founded America First Legal Foundation (AFL), where he drew a salary of $508,659 in his final year. AFL was funded through DonorsTrust — a dark money vehicle that shields donor identities.

Here's how the pipeline worked: AFL filed legal complaints against government agencies. Then Miller entered the White House and those same agencies acted on those complaints. The organization Miller built to pressure government from the outside became the template for what he implemented from the inside.

Palantir Flees to Florida

On February 17, 2026, Palantir — Colorado's largest public company — abruptly announced on X that it had moved its headquarters from Denver to Miami. No advance notice was given to the governor, the mayor, or any elected official. The announcement came after months of escalating protests outside Palantir's Cherry Creek offices over its role in building ICE's deportation surveillance system.

Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel had already moved his personal investment firm to Miami and relocated his voter registration to Florida. The company is heading to a state with lower taxes, fewer regulations, and a Republican governor — while its relationship with the federal government has never been more lucrative. Palantir reported $4.5 billion in revenue and $1.6 billion in net income for 2025 — more than triple its 2024 profit. U.S. government revenue alone grew 55% year-over-year to $1.9 billion. The company expects to make nearly $7.2 billion in 2026.

Denver City Councilmember Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez had warned that "Palantir is complicit in helping ICE track and target people's movements, causing harm in our communities." Colorado Senators Hickenlooper and Congressman Crow — both Democrats who had received tens of thousands in donations from Palantir employees — pledged to donate those funds to immigrant rights groups. The company left anyway — taking 500 Colorado jobs toward a friendlier political climate. The surveillance contracts remain.

This is a $312 billion company that has now fled two headquarters over protests against its government work. It left Silicon Valley for Denver in 2020 after employee backlash over ICE contracts. Now it has left Denver for Miami after a year of sustained community protests. The pattern is consistent: Palantir moves; the contracts stay.

The Billion-Dollar Tab

By February 2026, WIRED reported that DHS had opened a billion-dollar-plus tab with Palantir — the single largest technology contract in the department's history. ImmigrationOS is no longer a $30 million pilot. It is the backbone of the deportation infrastructure. The system pulls data from passport records, Social Security files, IRS tax data, driver's license databases, and cell phone location records to build profiles on every individual flagged for enforcement.

That surveillance system now feeds into Miller's $38.3 billion Detention Reengineering Initiative — the plan to convert warehouses across the country into mega-detention centers holding up to 92,600 people. Palantir's technology identifies the targets. ICE's new officers arrest them. The mega-centers hold them. The system Miller built is no longer a policy. It is a supply chain: data → arrest → detention → deportation. And Palantir is at every step.

The Full Picture

Palantir stock while overseeing ICE. Over $1 billion in DHS contracts to Palantir. A $795 million Pentagon contract. A $30 million no-bid AI surveillance system expanded into the backbone of the deportation apparatus. Thirteen former employees warning the company is "normalizing authoritarianism." A $312 billion company that has fled two cities over protests but never left a government contract. A $38.3 billion detention expansion to fill with the people Palantir's software identifies. A family firm servicing the Trump campaign. A dark-money-funded organization whose agenda became government policy. $175K in flagged bonuses. Legal bills paid by political allies. His own senior policy advisor held Palantir stock too.

This is the financial web surrounding the man who controls U.S. immigration enforcement, who promoted white nationalist literature, and who fabricated a cover story for the Minneapolis killings.

He has never faced a Senate confirmation hearing. He has never been required to answer questions about any of this under oath. But you can do something about that.