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The Trump administration is ratcheting up its deportation efforts with the hiring of human-tracking firms — a move critics call a “bounty hunter” program that is sure to increase the controversy surrounding immigration enforcement tactics.
The federal government, offering up to $280 million, has recently signed at least two contracts with private surveillance firms to hunt down immigrants at their homes and places of work, according to various reports.
One of the companies, BI Incorporated, is a subsidiary of GEO Group, a for-profit prison company that currently does business with the government jailing detained immigrants, according to The Intercept.
Trump administration proposals to use private tracking and investigative services have been circulating for months. Lawmakers in two states, Missouri and Mississippi, introduced legislation to create their own bounty hunter programs, but those bills stalled.
The new federal contracts broaden the administration’s use of the private sector in immigration enforcement. For instance, BI Incorporated has had past government contracts in immigrant surveillance with ankle monitor-based tracking.
The new contracts, one of which goes to a company called AI Solutions 87, mostly seek software and artificial intelligence investigati...
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