Follow the Money - January 2026: DMV Companies Awarded $19.5 Million in new ICE and CBP Contracts
Project Salt Box's monthly report on ICE and CBP procurement activities.
Bottom Line Up Front
$2.2B spent in one month — and it’s just getting started. CBP and ICE are moving fast on border walls, detention, and surveillance tech. Q1 is typically slow for federal spending, so expect this to accelerate.
Your tax dollars are funding a surveillance state. The shift to “Smart Walls” (cameras, sensors, detection tech) and ICE’s shopping spree for big data and ad tech means mass surveillance infrastructure that will outlast any administration.
Local companies are cashing in. DMV businesses took home $19.5M this month for detention transportation and “skip tracing” (bounty hunting).
Transparency is disappearing. More contracts are being awarded without competitive bidding, thanks to an April 2025 Executive Order that gutted procurement rules in the name of “efficiency.”
January's Biggest Contracts
CBP and ICE are not wasting time in spending One Big Beautiful Bill money, with over $2.2B in awarded contracts this month.
That sticker price is in large part due to two contracts awarded to Fisher Sand & Gravel, headquartered in Tempe, AZ. The company was awarded two border wall contracts in New Mexico and Texas, receiving $1.6B and $458M, respectively. Additional large contracts went to detention and transportation efforts, including awards to:
CoreCivic - $22.2M for detention and transportation services in Otay Mesa, CA
Trailboss Enterprises - $12.6M for ground transportation services in New Mexico and Texas
GEO Transport - $10.4M for ground transportation services in Salt Lake City, Utah
Akima Infrastructure Protection (headquartered in Herndon, VA) - $9.6M for detention and transportation services at the Port Isabel Detention Center
Keep in mind - these are just new contracts. This does not include spending on already existing contracts.
Local Contract Awards: DMV Companies Awarded $19.5M in new ICE and CBP contracts
While most of this month’s new spending went to border wall projects on the southern border, DC, Maryland, and Virginia contracting companies were also awarded almost $20 million in new contracts this month. The vast majority of that money (97%) went to Virginia-based firms, including the detention and transportation services contract awarded to Akima.
Other multi-million dollar contract awards went to Global Recovery Group of Herndon, VA for skip tracing (read: bounty hunting) services and Booz Allen Hamilton of McLean, VA for IT Modernization support.
Baltimore-based Price Modern, LLC was awarded several contracts to provide furniture for HSI operations in Mississippi, Arizona, and Puerto Rico.
Future Plans
Both CBP and ICE issued several requests for proposals (RFPs) and requests for information (RFIs), giving a good indication of their plans for later this year. Highlights include:
The design and build of a 50-agent border patrol station near Houlton, ME.
Outreach and implementation support for the 287(g) program, indicating a continued increase in ICE’s coordination with state and local law enforcement
ICE ERO technology innovation consulting services to assist the agency in identifying technological “gaps” across the enterprise and sourcing innovative technology
Big data and ad tech to support ICE investigations
Analysis and Trends
Emphasis on Big Data and Tech: January’s border wall contracts come after a massive spending push in late FY25 when CBP awarded $4.5B to construct hundreds of miles of a Smart Wall border.
According to a CBP press release in October 2025, the Smart Wall is, “a border security system that combines steel barriers, waterborne barriers, patrol roads, lights, cameras, and advanced detection technology to give Border Patrol agents the best tools in the world to stop illegal traffic. In total, these projects will add 230 miles of Smart Wall and nearly 400 miles of new technology.”
These “smart” upgrades to the border protection infrastructure follow an overall trend we are seeing across DHS to use advanced technology. As we reported earlier this week, ICE is conducting market research on the use of big data and ad tech in their investigations.
Additionally, their need for contractor support to identify innovative technologies in support of ERO operations is another sign of the agency’s plans to leverage data and emerging technologies. This, coupled with the agency’s continued investment in data aggregation and analysis capabilities like Palantir, suggests that the use of large amounts of data to inform operational and investigative activities is only going to increase.
Procurement Trends: This month saw a lot of market research conducted by ICE and CBP contracting officials. This is typical in the Federal procurement cycle, where Q1 and Q2 are generally RFI-heavy, and the real spending doesn’t pick up until late spring. We expect this market research to continue into the next couple months. Another trend we are keeping an eye on is the use of sole-source and limited-competition procurements. Anecdotally, we are seeing many contracts being awarded outside of the typical competitive bidding process. That will likely continue, especially since the White House issued an Executive Order in April 2025 to overhaul the FAR (the set of laws governing how the government can buy things), in part to speed up the acquisition process. This order specifically states:
“It is the policy of the United States to create the most agile, effective, and efficient procurement system possible. Removing undue barriers, such as unnecessary regulations, while simultaneously allowing for the expansion of the national and defense industrial bases is paramount. Accordingly, the FAR should contain only provisions required by statute or essential to sound procurement, and any FAR provisions that do not advance these objectives should be removed.”
DMV Businesses Continue to Profit: None of the contracts awarded this month to DMV-headquartered businesses came as a surprise, as those companies have long-standing contracts and histories providing products and services to ICE/CBP. Given the region’s contractor-heavy environment, we expect to see continued involvement of local businesses in national immigration enforcement activities. As new companies enter that arena, we will highlight them in future reports.
Project Salt Box in the News
Our reporting and analysis has been picked up by several local news outlets over the past few weeks including The Baltimore Banner, WYPR, and the Baltimore Beat.
About this Report
All data used in this report is from usaspending.gov and SAM.gov. This is the first monthly report from Project Salt Box. If there are specific procurements, companies, regions, or topics you would like us to cover in future monthly reports, please reach out to us and let us know.
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