Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is making a dramatic change in the way it tracks migrants facing removal. Instead of depending mainly on government officers, the agency is now turning heavily to private contractors. According to federal contracting documents reviewed by WIRED, what began as a small pilot project has now become a huge nationwide program with no spending cap at all.
A Huge Change in How ICE Uses Private Contractors
The original pilot program was designed to test whether outside companies could help verify the home and work addresses of migrants moving through the immigration system. At first, the government set a clear limit on total costs and only small guaranteed payments to each vendor.
Those limits have now been removed. ICE has rewritten its contract to allow each company to earn up to $281.25 million, far more than the earlier cap of $90 million. The minimum guarantee has also skyrocketed—from $250 to $7.5 million. These changes suggest that ICE wants private contractors to build full field operations, hire teams of investigators, and become deeply involved in the agency’s daily enforcement work.
This marks one of the biggest shifts in how ICE handles migrant tracking, especially because it gives private contractors a much larger role in sensitive federal duties.
What the New Program Allows Private Investigators to Do
Under the new system, ICE will send 50,000 cases every month to private investigators chosen through the contract. These cases come from a much larger backlog of about 1.5 million people. The job of the investigators is simple but powerful: figure out exactly where each person lives or works.
To do this, private contractors will check commercial databases, search open-source information online, and, when needed, visit homes or workplaces in person. ICE will pay a fixed price per case, and companies can earn bonuses for working faster and more accurately. The program even allows contractors to propose their own bonus structures, giving them more control over how they earn money.
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Earlier drafts hinted that contractors might get access to ICE’s internal case-management systems. That possibility has now been completely removed. New filings say private contractors will not enter ICE systems “under any circumstance.” Instead, ICE will send them special case packets containing sensitive details about each migrant.
Even without direct database access, the new rules still give private contractors a large amount of personal information to handle. This includes addresses, identification details, and other private records normally kept inside federal systems.
The program’s reach is widening even further. The updated terms allow the Department of Justice and other units within the Department of Homeland Security to issue their own task orders using the same contract. More federal agencies could soon use the system, and this expansion would broaden how private contractors operate inside enforcement work.
Why ICE Is Relying So Heavily on Private Contractors
This expansion fits into a larger pattern under the Trump administration, which has been pushing to outsource more enforcement duties to private contractors. ICE has faced a long-standing challenge: very few companies are willing to build large surveillance operations, hire trained investigators, or run 24/7 centers without strong financial guarantees.
By removing spending caps and sharply increasing guaranteed payments, ICE is signaling that it needs these companies to commit fully. The agency wants them to build field teams, stay active around the clock, and integrate into the enforcement pipeline with long-term stability.
This tracking program is part of a series of recent moves:
- ICE has proposed a contractor-run transportation network in Texas, with armed teams operating 24/7.
- The agency is looking for a private vendor to run two nonstop social media monitoring centers, scanning online activity day and night.
- ICE wants a contractor-operated national call center capable of handling up to 7,000 enforcement-related calls daily, with minimal federal staffing.
Each new project gives private contractors a deeper role in federal operations.
The updated migrant-tracking contract is one of the most significant examples. By opening the door to payouts as high as $281 million per company, ICE is ensuring that private contractors will become essential to its tracking efforts.
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Even though these companies will not directly enter ICE’s internal computer systems, they will still receive huge amounts of sensitive data for millions of migrants. And with other federal agencies now allowed to use the same contract structure, the influence of private contractors is set to spread across different areas of federal enforcement.
For now, ICE is moving quickly to lock in these companies and build a nationwide network of private investigators, who will handle the tracking of migrants across the country—fifty thousand cases at a time.