The strongest objections, and fair answers

The objection, stated fairly: Immigration is among the most polarized issues in American politics. Any proposal seen as "amnesty" or as weakening ICE will be attacked, and many members of Congress were elected on enforcement-first platforms.

Response: Public opinion is mixed, not one-sided. Gallup (June 2025) found 78 percent support for letting undocumented immigrants become citizens if they meet requirements over time, while 38 percent supported deporting all of them.^[37] ISAE keeps enforcement for serious offenders, requires accountability, and asks Congress, not the executive, to decide status questions.

The objection, stated fairly: Congress has just made the largest investment in detention and removal in its history, and its supporters see that as a mandate.

Response: ISAE does not ask Congress to reverse that decision on faith. Phase 1 produces evidence on cost per case and compliance, and Phase 2 reallocation is tied to measured results.

The objection, stated fairly: Officers may see a successor agency as a threat to their jobs, mission, and identity. ICE's officer union has opposed discretion-based programs before: in 2012 its president and other agents sued over DACA. The suit was dismissed, and the dismissal was affirmed on appeal.^[62]

Response: Guaranteed transfer and pay protection, paid retraining, a voluntary enforcement career track, and early union consultation. Without these, ISAE should expect organized resistance.

The objection, stated fairly: People may enroll under false identities or exploit sponsor and verification systems. In 2024, DHS paused new CHNV parole travel authorizations after an internal review flagged about 101,000 sponsor forms tied to 3,218 "serial" sponsors, including Social Security numbers belonging to deceased people.^[63]

Response: Fraud controls must be built in from the start: enrollment identity checks, follow-up fingerprints when there is doubt, cross-checks of documents and sponsors, audits, and penalties for fraud. CHNV also shows that detection works when systems are designed for it.

The objection, stated fairly: Releasing people into supervision instead of detention could let dangerous people go free.

Response: Mandatory-detention law still applies. Red-tier cases still go to enforcement, and the triage dashboard is audited in both directions. Today, 70.6 percent of ICE detainees have no criminal conviction,^[2] which suggests detention capacity is not concentrated on the highest-risk people.

The objection, stated fairly: States, enforcement-minded plaintiffs, or civil-liberties groups will sue. Categorical programs (DAPA, DACA, Keeping Families Together) have been blocked or narrowed.^{[56] [57]}

Response: Phase 1 relies on case-by-case discretion within existing authority. Phase 2 puts the program on a statutory footing, which is the most durable protection against legal challenge.

The objection, stated fairly: Creating a new agency is expensive and distracting. DHS's own creation was placed on GAO's High-Risk List.^[61]

Response: Phase the transition, fund it explicitly, measure it, and include a sunset. The costs of the status quo (Sections 1–2) also continue every year.

The objection, stated fairly: Apps fail, phones get lost, coverage is uneven, and face-matching has documented demographic error differences. In 2023, advocates reported that the CBP One app often failed to accept photos of darker-skinned asylum seekers; CBP said the app did not use facial recognition.^{[64] [65]}

Response: Do not treat a technical failure as non-compliance. Provide manual fallbacks (voice check-in, or a case-worker visit at the participant's location). Test independently for demographic error rates. Never take adverse action based on a single automated result (Section 7).

The objection, stated fairly: After recent operations, immigrant communities may see any DHS enrollment program as a trap. An app may look like a tool for locating people. Reporting on ICE's Mobile Fortify field face-recognition app has made that fear concrete.^[66]

Response: Trust has to be earned. Enrollment would be carried out by community partners, with no arrests at enrollment, statutory data firewalls, independent oversight, and published audit results. Without these, enrollment rates will be low and the model will fail.

Probably true for anything federal to move. Plan for both a veto and a signature: Phase 1 builds evidence that outlasts any one administration.

That may be true, which is why enrollment runs through community partners and why the pilot must measure trust, not just caseload. If trust fails, the idea fails.

Whether ISAE-captured information may be used to locate a participant who absconds under an executable final order is unresolved and is flagged for legal review in the product specification.