U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is seeking contractors to help build a sweeping criminal intelligence operation that would analyze information on people and businesses, rank investigative leads, and maintain a separate system for information about confidential informants.
The plans appear in a draft work statement that USCIS circulated Tuesday with a market research survey run through the General Services Administration, which helps agencies gauge interest from potential contractors. The contractor would support the Criminal Investigative Division, or CID, of the agency’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, known as FDNS.
The division is growing under a rule that took effect Oct. 6, 2025, and gave USCIS the power to make arrests, carry firearms, and execute search and arrest warrants. The draft says FDNS must build investigative and analytic infrastructure “on an accelerated timeline” while USCIS recruits, onboards, and trains special agents.
The draft was posted a day after agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the criminal investigative arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, searched the Washington home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) as part of a criminal investigation into her immigration paperwork. A federal judge has limited the Justice Department’s access to Omar’s records in the investigation, CNN reported Wednesday.
The investigation aims to build a case to strip Omar of her citizenship and deport her, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing U.S. officials and others familiar with it. Investigators are examining whether Omar or her late father listed her age as 17 rather than 18 on paperwork that let her gain citizenship through her father in 2000, the Journal reported. Omar’s office told the Journal there is no basis for the investigation.
HSI officials reviewed a similar tip during the Biden administration and did not pursue it because they lacked evidence of fraud, the Journal reported.
The possible false statements on immigration paperwork that investigators are examining fall within the mission the draft gives the Criminal Investigative Division: investigating criminal activity that exploits immigration laws and programs, and referring cases for prosecution. The contractor would help sort tips, rank leads, and prepare case materials for government review. Reports describe Homeland Security Investigations as leading the Omar investigation with help from the Justice Department, and the draft does not mention her.
USCIS did not answer questions from Project Salt Box about the contract, including whether the agency already uses confidential informants and how many special agents it has hired. The agency referred Project Salt Box to the draft work statement, which does not address those questions. USCIS Director Joseph Edlow told The Wall Street Journal last year that the agency planned to train several hundred special agents to look for fraud in immigration applications and arrest the immigrants or lawyers involved.
Contractors would also combine information from USCIS files with data from law enforcement agencies, companies that sell personal data, public websites, financial records, and maps. They would use it to write summaries on people and businesses, draw charts showing how people are connected, and assess whether a case should be referred for further action.
The information USCIS may provide includes the results of visits officers make to homes and workplaces to check applications, background check findings, and reports banks file with the government on large cash transactions and suspicious activity. The draft also says the contractor’s researchers would search social media.
Within 90 days of an award, the contractor would deliver a framework for scoring leads by significance, urgency, potential impact, and resource needs. A second framework, due within 120 days, would help government staff judge whether the information in a case is complete and corroborated enough for further action. The draft states twice that this second framework will not predict whether a prosecution will occur.
The document repeats throughout that contractor work is “advisory” and that government employees keep all investigative, enforcement, and prosecution decisions.
The draft also describes a “secure and segregated” system for managing confidential informant information, kept apart from the division’s general case files. Contractors would help design, test, and document the system. The draft bars them from recruiting, directing, paying, or meeting with informants and says those decisions belong to government employees.
The contract would also support the FDNS Tip Unit, which receives about 600 tips per business day, according to the draft. Program estimates indicate about half may contain information that warrants further government review. The tips include fraud allegations, possible national security concerns, public safety allegations, and threats against protected persons.
The contractor would help configure rules-based or artificial intelligence tools to flag duplicate tips, link related ones, and recommend how each should be prioritized and routed. The draft bars the use of tip information to train outside or general-purpose AI models.
The draft calls for a 12-month contract based at USCIS facilities in the Washington area. Work would start with a headquarters “Jump Team,” with a plan to extend support to field offices later. Anticipated roles include criminal investigative analysts, forensic accountants, data scientists, open-source intelligence specialists, and geospatial analysts. Most positions require a high-risk public trust background check at a minimum, with secret or top-secret clearances for some assignments. The draft does not include an estimated value.
The USCIS draft follows a similar plan from ICE. In September, Project Salt Box reported on a draft statement of work for ERO ONE, an intelligence contract for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division estimated at more than $100 million. That draft called for 142 contract analysts at ICE field offices and targeting centers, all with top-secret clearances and access to sensitive compartmented information.
A DHS forecast lists Dec. 10 as the planned solicitation date for ERO ONE. The contracting specialist listed on the ERO ONE document told The American Prospect that ICE already knows its potential bidders and is unlikely to hold an industry day.
Both drafts ask contract analysts to map networks and links between people while stating that contractors will not make enforcement decisions. USCIS sets a lower minimum clearance and a shorter term. Its draft also covers tip processing and informant records.
“Without this support, CID’s ability to identify fraud patterns, prioritize referrals, develop time-sensitive leads for Government review, and provide executive decision support may be materially impaired,” the draft says.
We will constantly wonder if our neighbors and coworkers are informers. Just like under Nazi occupation.