Palantir mass surveillance technology enables deadly immigration raids

Today, National Nurses United and Silicon Valley Rising Action announced that U.S. Representative Ro Khanna has rescinded all contributions received to date from Palantir Technologies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) top technology contractor. He has donated the $49,000 to community groups and publicly refused future donations from the company, whose mass surveillance technology has enabled deadly immigration raids. 

In taking the Purge Palantir pledge, Rep. Khanna joins a growing cohort of lawmakers, including Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper and U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan (NY-18), who are refusing future contributions from Palantir, its PAC, and any C-suite employee. These actions follow the Jan. 2026 launch of the Palantir Payroll, Purge Palantir’s tracker of political donations by Palantir to both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

Palantir Technologies, co-founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, builds AI-powered tools for mass data collection and mass surveillance that enable the escalation in intimidation, violence, and lawlessness conducted by ICE and CBP, as well as the unsafe proliferation of AI in hospitals.

“It’s incredibly meaningful that Representative Ro Khanna, from the heart of Silicon Valley, rejected Palantir’s money and attempts to influence federal policy,” said Mary Turner, RN and president of National Nurses United. “Nurses are alarmed by Palantir’s harmful technology and its expanding reach across all aspects of American life, from our federal government to even our health care system. No elected leader who claims to stand with nurses or represent the interests of working people should be taking campaign contributions from Palantir. We hope all elected officials will follow Rep. Khanna’s lead.” 

“Most Americans believe corporations and billionaires shouldn't be able to buy their way out of accountability, and Representative Khanna proved that elected leaders can choose to stand on our side,” said Maria Noel Fernandez, Executive Director, Silicon Valley Rising Action. “Palantir is a window into a much larger reality of corporate power and billionaires reshaping our government from the inside. We're building the movement to change that.” 

"I am proud to be the first Bay Area member to take the pledge to refuse all future individual contributions from Palantir,” said Representative Ro Khanna. “This quarter, I have donated all of the contributions I have ever received from Palantir executives — not just from this cycle. I have never taken PAC money or corporate money, including from a Palantir PAC. I will continue working with National Nurses United and the coalition to encourage other leaders to also take this critical pledge.”

The federal government, led by the Republican Party and President Trump, has cut more than a trillion dollars in funding for Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies while awarding billions of dollars in contracts to Palantir. 

From 2009 to 2025, Palantir received $2.5 billion in federal government funding, but this number has grown tremendously in just the past year. In July 2025, the Department of Defense announced a $10 billion agreement with Palantir to use its technology to share data across federal agencies, enabling unprecedented surveillance power. This followed a $30 million contract awarded to Palantir by the Department of Homeland Security to build an AI-powered system that would identify immigrants for deportation.  In Feb. 2026, the Department of Homeland Security and Palantir signed a $1 billion contract. 

Palantir’s technology also extends to the health care industry. Hospital CEOs, including Sam Hazan of HCA Healthcare, have been clamoring to hand over patient data and automate staffing with Palantir. For example, HCA worked with Palantir to develop Timpani, an A.I.-enabled application that nurses report creates unsustainable and faulty schedules that ultimately perpetuate the national short-staffing crisis.

In addition to working closely with the U.S. government and U.S. hospital corporations, Palantir has also entered into a partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Defense to support their “war effort” in Gaza, which Israeli human rights organizations, the globe’s leading association of genocide scholars, and a United Nations Special Committee, among others, have concluded is a genocide. More than 1,500 health care workers, in addition to tens of thousands of innocent civilians, have been murdered in Gaza since the Israeli invasion in October 2023.

National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.

Silicon Valley Rising Action is a Santa Clara County-based organization focused on worker and tenant rights, affordable housing, economic justice and building democratic power. Through voter engagement and grassroots organizing, SVRA has mobilized thousands of historically marginalized voters and built a coalition winning progressive victories across the county