Mamdani Administration Scrutinizes NYPD Contracts With ICE Surveillance Vendor

On a Tuesday afternoon in early April, a five page questionnaire landed at NYPD headquarters demanding the department turn over every protocol governing how Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials might access license plate data collected through the agency’s contracts with a private surveillance firm.

The document, sent by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office, zeroed in on one specific concern: the company, Vigilant Solutions, also does business with ICE.

The scrutiny of the NYPD’s dealings with Vigilant is part of a broader audit process that Mamdani ordered in February across the police department and five other city agencies. The mayor has framed the reviews as a push to strengthen New York City’s sanctuary laws as the Trump administration continues its aggressive immigration enforcement operations nationwide. Those laws prohibit city employees and resources from being used to assist federal authorities in civil immigration matters.

By examining a private vendor during the NYPD audit, Mamdani’s team signaled it intends to look beyond the department’s internal compliance and into its outside contractors. In his February order authorizing the audits, the mayor specified they could result in “changes and updates to policies and protocols,” suggesting the focus on Vigilant could carry consequences for the company’s city contracts.

Vigilant Solutions, based in California, manufactures license plate tracking systems and surveillance software used by law enforcement agencies across the country. According to city procurement records, the NYPD has spent more than $2 million on Vigilant’s systems since at least 2014.

The audit questionnaire, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, demanded that the NYPD provide all protocols related to how ICE officials might gain “in real time or without request” access to license plate reader data collected by the department in connection with its Vigilant contracts. The document explicitly stated that Mamdani’s team is seeking this information because Vigilant also “contracts with ICE.”

The administration’s focus on the company follows a 2019 report from the American Civil Liberties Union revealing that ICE had gained access to a national database maintained by Vigilant containing billions of license plate records. At the time, the ACLU alleged that 80 law enforcement agencies across 20 states had agreed to share their data with the federal immigration authority through the vendor’s network.

Mayoral spokesperson Sam Raskin offered little detail when asked why the NYPD’s ties to Vigilant are being singled out. “The Mamdani administration has engaged with a number of agencies on their policies, guidelines and procedures related to federal immigration enforcement,” Raskin said Tuesday. “We will share more soon.”