Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., says he has “grave concerns” over a plan by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to award monetary bonuses to private bounty hunters, according to a letter reviewed by The Intercept.
ICE is currently considering awarding contracts to companies interested in providing “skip tracing” services that would deploy privatize investigators to track down immigrants residing inside the U.S. The plan, first reported by The Intercept, states that these bounty hunters will be tasked with conducting surveillance and ultimately pinpointing the home address of “aliens,” defined by the Department of Homeland Security as “a person who is not a citizen or national of the United States.” They could earn bonus payments based on how many immigrants they help the government in apprehending, and how quickly.
In a letter sent Monday to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Rep. Krishnamoorthi states that the outsourcing proposal raises worrying questions about accountability.
“Once the state begins contracting out its power to police, it invites the very abuses, secrecy, and corruption our founders sought to prevent.”
“Allowing private contractors to perform enforcement activities under a system of performance-based financial incentives, essentially bounty hunting, outsources one of the government’s most coercive powers to actors who operate with little oversight and limited public accountability,” Krishnamoorthi writes. “These contractors are not subject to the same scrutiny, discipline, or transparency that restrains federal officers, and entrusting them with powers of investigation and surveillance risks creating an enforcement apparatus that functions beyond the reach of ordinary checks and balances. Once the state begins contracting out its power to police, it invites the very abuses, secrecy, and corruption our founders sought to prevent.”
Krishnamoorthi also notes his worries about how the plan will further blur the line between federal authority and the private sector, adding more corporate profit motive to the government’s increasingly chaotic and freewheeling domestic immigration operations. “In such a system built on quotas and cash rewards with minimal oversight, mistakes are not just possible — they are certain. The pressure to hit numbers replaces the judgment, training, and accountability that should define real law enforcement.”
In addition to registering his alarm over the proposal, Krishnamoorthi is asking Noem to clarify outstanding questions about how the private bounty hunter system would work, including whether contractors will be required to identify themselves as agents of the federal government.
ICE did not respond to questions about Krishnamoorthi’s inquiry, but said in a statement that “The Request for Information is solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a Request for Proposal nor does it restrict the Government to any acquisition approach. As part of its market research, ICE is issuing this RFI to determine the estimated number of interested vendors capable of meeting this requirement. The government may use the responses to this RFI for information and planning purposes.”
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I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
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