ICE wants to spend $180M on bounty hunters to track down thousands of immigrants
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ICE looking to hire bounty hunters to track down thousands of immigrants
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is seeking to hire private investigators and bounty hunters, known as “skip tracers,” to locate and track tens of thousands of immigrants to boost arrests under Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
- ICE could spend up to $180 million on surveillance services targeting more than one million homes through efforts such as “enhanced location research,” which includes the “collection of photos and documents verifying the alien’s residence and/or place of employment.”
- Skip tracers must report a target’s “physical location” to the government or “inform the government that it is not able to locate the alien, and any additional visits would be fruitless,” according to the documents reviewed by The Independent.
- The agency's plans include expanding immigration arrests and detention, with the Trump administration already holding a record high of over 66,000 people in detention centers.
- Critics warn that the rapid expansion of ICE personnel and contractors, alongside increased funding and legal scrutiny, risks repeating past mistakes of corruption and misconduct.