Colorado organizers celebrated a “victory,” after Palantir Technologies, the data-mining and AI company long criticized for its work with immigration enforcement and the military, announced on Feb. 17 that it moved its corporate headquarters from Denver to Miami. The relocation followed more than a year of escalating protests in Colorado targeting Palantir’s local offices that included, according to a Feb. 18 press release circulated by organizers, street theater, pickets, rallies, vigils, and targeted political pressure to push the company out of the state.
On the opposite side of the country, however, Miami advocates and community members received the news as something else entirely: the arrival of a powerful surveillance contractor to a community with scores of immigrant and working-class residents.
Palantir, founded in 2003 and co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, has faced years of scrutiny over government contracts and its role in immigration enforcement as well as for powering Israeli weapons used against Palestinians. Recent reporting and watchdog analyses have highlighted Palantir’s work to build “ImmigrationOS,” a platform intended to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) identify, track, and deport noncitizens, part of what critics describe as an expanding ecosystem of data-driven surveillance and enforcement.
Palantir did not respond to Prism’s request for comment.
Eliot Howe, an organizer with Denver Anti-War Action, described the news of Palantir leaving Colorado as “a much needed boost of optimism” and evidence that sustained public pressure can have real consequences. “I was definitely so excited,” they said.
But Howe emphasized that organizers do not yet have confirmation that Palantir has fully ceased operations in Colorado, adding that activists plan to continue researching the company’s footprint and maintaining pressure.
Howe described the Denver campaign as a direct challenge to Palantir’s physical presence and a broader education effort about what they see as the company’s role in state violence abroad and at home. Actions included a protest on May 15, Nakba Day, when activists filled a downtown building lobby with Palestinian flags and chants, and later held a demonstration outside Palantir’s offices.
For Howe, the urgency is rooted in what they described as Palantir’s weaponization of data and its public claims about automating parts of military decision-making.
“Palantir has boasted that they have automated the steps of the kill chain,” Howe said, arguing that automation makes accountability harder when harm occurs. “In this day and age when technology and AI, together with the arms of the Pentagon, can produce as lethal results as an atomic bomb, I don’t want to live next to the people programming that technology.”
A National Campaign
Kenny Morris, a researcher with the American Friends Service Committee and the national “Purge Palantir” campaign, said activists see a pattern: Palantir left Silicon Valley for Denver in 2020 after protests; now the company is leaving Denver after sustained organizing and seeking terrain where it expects fewer obstacles. For Morris, “success” is not simply forcing a change of address.
“Pushing Palantir out of the city is important,” Morris said, but the long-term goal is “to isolate and sanction this company and limit their influence as much as possible in our lives” by pressuring corporate clients, institutions, and politicians to cut ties.
That strategy has included pushing elected officials to reject or redirect campaign contributions connected to Palantir leadership. In early February, Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper and Rep. Jason Crow announced that they would donate more than $100,000 in campaign contributions tied to Palantir leaders to immigrant rights and civil liberties groups, following public scrutiny and media inquiries.
Denver organizers said they are preparing to keep pressure on Palantir even after the relocation announcement. According to the press release, Denver groups plan a “Palantir Week of Pressure” from March 9-15, framed as a public sendoff and as a message that the company’s presence remains contested.
Morris said the next phase is about scaling, helping communities identify where Palantir is embedded through corporate clients, universities, hospitals, and political relationships, and sharing tactics that can be adapted locally.
Miami as “Safe Terrain”
If Denver organizers are calling the move a win, Miami advocates describe it as a warning flare.
Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst and consultant with the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said Palantir is likely choosing a state where organizing is structurally harder and state politics are friendlier to corporate power.
“They picked the place where they couldn’t pay the most taxes,” Kennedy said, arguing that Florida’s business environment and political landscape — along with restrictive protest laws — make it an attractive destination for a company facing public backlash elsewhere.
Kennedy also criticized what he described as a celebratory reception of Palantir from local South Florida political figures, and the broader branding of Miami as a “tech hub” that rarely grapples with the consequences of the kinds of technologies Palantir sells.
Palantir’s announcement fits into a wider trend of tech and finance leaders expanding in South Florida, frequently touting the city’s tax structure and business climate as a magnet for corporate relocations. But Kennedy warned that residents should not mistake Palantir for a typical tech employer.
“This is an evil company,” Kennedy said, pointing to the company’s role in developing tools that enable surveillance and enforcement, especially through federal contracts.
For Miami-based artist and activist Eddie Arroyo, the move reads as a continuation of a deeper shift: a city eager to attract Big Tech without fully confronting the implications. Arroyo said his immediate concern was surveillance, especially in a region with a large immigrant and working-class population. But he also emphasized the challenge of public awareness.
“I don’t think most people even know who Palantir is [as] a company,” he said. “The nefarious things that Palantir does or is involved with is something that the city residents are not really aware of. I think a lot of that is by design.”
An “Unwelcome Party” in Aventura
Cathy Carrillo, national “No Tech for ICE” campaign organizer with Mijente, said the national Latinx justice group first began researching Palantir and other tech contractors in 2018, when it launched a national effort to track the private companies powering ICE’s enforcement infrastructure.
In 2019, Mijente released a report examining corporations tied to immigration surveillance, including Amazon, Thomson Reuters, and Palantir. Even then, Carrillo said, organizers anticipated the expanding role AI and data systems would play in deportation operations.
“All the way back then, we were able to analyze and call what the moves were going to happen,” Carrillo said. “Now, here we are almost eight years later, and we see how big of a role these companies are playing to the point where they’re the ones … essentially controlling the moves behind the scenes.”
Carrillo said Mijente organized an “unwelcome party” when Palantir moved from Palo Alto to Denver in 2020, a symbolic action meant to signal that relocating would not shield the company from scrutiny.
Carlos Naranjo, an organizer with Mijente, said local Miami members learned about the relocation online and were “shocked.”
“It’s very concerning that Florida is becoming that place,” Naranjo said, pointing to the expansion of aggressive state-level enforcement and the presence of major private detention corporations, including the Geo Group, in the region.
In response, Mijente is organizing another “unwelcome party” outside Palantir’s new headquarters location in Aventura Mall, a glossy retail hub in northern Miami-Dade County that draws local shoppers and international tourists.
The action, Naranjo said, will include testimonies from migrant community members, banners, and educational materials explaining what Palantir does particularly its role in building digital infrastructure for detention and deportation.
“We want to make sure they understand that we are watching,” Naranjo said. “We want to let them know that we’re aware of what they are and that we’re going to continue holding them accountable.”
Prism is an independent and nonprofit newsroom led by journalists of color. We report from the ground up and at the intersections of injustice.
A terrifying moment. We appeal for your support.
In the last weeks, we have witnessed an authoritarian assault on communities in Minnesota and across the nation.
The need for truthful, grassroots reporting is urgent at this cataclysmic historical moment. Yet, Trump-aligned billionaires and other allies have taken over many legacy media outlets — the culmination of a decades-long campaign to place control of the narrative into the hands of the political right.
We refuse to let Trump’s blatant propaganda machine go unchecked. Untethered to corporate ownership or advertisers, Truthout remains fearless in our reporting and our determination to use journalism as a tool for justice.
But we need your help just to fund our basic expenses. Over 80 percent of Truthout’s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors.
Truthout’s fundraiser ends tonight! We have a goal to add 130 new monthly donors before midnight. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger one-time gift, Truthout only works with your support.
