Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed $57.1 million in new skip tracing orders on Wednesday with 14 private companies hired to track down immigrants, according to contracting records reviewed by Project Salt Box.
Skip tracing is the work of locating a specific person. The companies use public records, commercial databases, and online sources to find where an immigrant lives or works, then confirm the address in person and photograph it as proof. ICE uses the results in its removal operations.
Scripps News reported in January that the contracts allow bonuses tied to how many people a company finds, and that ICE had hired 13 companies for the work. Most had not been paid at the time.
Sharon Bradford Franklin, the former chairwoman of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, told Scripps the companies are essentially ICE bounty hunters.
“It’s the same kind of incentive situation,” she said.
The group has since grown to 14 companies.
The first skip tracing orders, placed in December of last year, ran through May 14. Yesterday’s orders are each almost exactly three times the size. Constellation was ordered $767,468.75 in work the first time and $2,302,406.25 this week. Enprovera, the smallest firm, went from $34,552 to $103,656.
The largest order, $14.5 million, went to Capgemini Government Solutions. Its French parent company announced in February that it would sell the subsidiary after the December ICE contract drew criticism from lawmakers, workers and investors. Capgemini said legal restrictions on contractors doing classified work in the United States prevented it from properly overseeing parts of the subsidiary’s operations, and said the sale would begin immediately. The unit accounts for about 0.4% of the company’s global revenue. Capgemini has not announced a buyer.
Several of the companies on ICE’s skip tracing contract hold more than one federal contract tied to immigration enforcement.
SOS International, National Protective Services, and Response AI Solutions each hold a second ICE contract for what the agency calls safety verification checks on unaccompanied migrant children. Response AI Solutions holds a third, with Customs and Border Protection, to collect fines from people who have already been deported. It is the only company known to hold all three.
Two firms are subsidiaries of larger companies. B.I. Incorporated is owned by the GEO Group, which operates private detention centers for ICE. The child company is also the long-time provider of surveillance technology and case management services for ICE’s “Intensive Supervision Appearance Program.”
Omniplex World Services is owned by Constellis, the security company once known as Blackwater.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
Thank you for getting so much damning info out to the public. Horrifying but need to know. Grateful for your efforts.
The policies and practices used are incentivizing abuses and human rights violations. Where the hell is Congress?