ICE Plans Bounty Hunter Army to Locate and Deport Immigrants

(UNITED STATES) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving to hire private contractors — described in agency materials as “bounty hunters” — to help locate and deport undocumented immigrants under a performance-based system that pays cash bonuses for successful results. Procurement documents dated October 31, 2025 outline a program that would hand contractors batches of case files, starting with lists of 10,000 names and scaling up to as many as 1,000,000 individuals, with the goal of rapidly verifying addresses and reporting people’s locations to federal officers for enforcement actions under President Trump’s immigration agenda.

The plan formalizes the use of the private sector in core enforcement tasks, building on millions of dollars in government contracts already awarded for skip tracing — the industry term for locating people through databases, public records, and surveillance tools. ICE has signed more than $40 million in such contracts with vendors including SOSi and Global Recovery Group LLC, including a single award valued at up to $33.5 million to Global Recovery Group LLC. The procurement materials describe an “incentive based pricing structure” that pays cash bonuses for fast and accurate work, including rewards for finding an address on the first try or achieving high hit rates, such as locating 90% of assigned targets within a set timeframe.

The agency’s documents say contractors may use “all technology systems available,” a phrase that opens the door to a broad array of digital tools. The program allows off-the-shelf surveillance platforms, automated skip-tracing software, and real-time social media monitoring. It also requires contractors to produce “time-stamped photographs of the location” they identify, and permits the use of mobile-phone and social-media data to track people’s movements. In practice, that means the bounty hunters and other private contractors working these cases can combine government-supplied case data with commercial data verification and physical observation, leveraging AI-driven social media analytics tools — including platforms like Zignal Labs cited in proposals — for real-time alerts tied to names and addresses.

The scale is central to the pitch. ICE’s plan anticipates that private teams could surge from working thousands of names at a time to handling 1 million targets. Contractors would be assigned batches as large as 10,000 cases, with the expectation that they could verify addresses quickly and feed those results back to enforcement officers who would then decide whether to conduct arrests. The documents present speed and accuracy as core metrics for cash bonuses, embedding financial incentives into each phase of a case hunt.

Supporters are already lining up at the state level with proposals to amplify federal actions using bounty-style payments. In Mississippi, the Mississippi Illegal Alien Certified Bounty Hunter Program — House Bill 1484 — sets a $1,000 reward for each successful deportation that registered bounty hunters help facilitate, backed by state funds. District Attorney Matthew Barton of Mississippi framed the effort as a public safety measure aligned with the White House.

“This program is a vital step in assisting our law enforcement agencies to better enforce immigration laws and ensure that those in this country unlawfully are sent back to their country of origin.”

He added that the initiative follows President Trump’s executive orders and aims to protect citizens.

State Representative Justin Keen, also from Mississippi, echoed that message and linked it directly to enforcement priorities under the current administration.

“This legislation is about keeping Mississippi communities safe. We’ve seen firsthand the danger posed by bad actors and violent criminals who enter this country illegally… President Trump’s administration has made it clear that deporting illegal immigrants is a priority, and we are proud to do our part here in Mississippi to help support his agenda and protect our citizens.”

The Mississippi proposal also invokes local jail statistics to build its case, citing DeSoto County data that more than 1,000 illegal aliens were booked into the county detention center during Former President Biden’s term — a 150% increase compared to the previous Trump administration.

Inside Washington, the plan tracks with ideas promoted by Erik Prince, the former chief executive of Blackwater, and a team of military contractors who have pushed the government to lean on private-sector hunting and surveillance capacity to accelerate removals. Their blueprint included a “bounty program which provides a cash reward for each illegal alien held by a state or local law enforcement officer,” matched with a national-scale skip-tracing operation tasked with finding people who have crossed the border or overstayed visas. Politico reported that Trump ally Steve Bannon urged quick action, saying, “people want this stood up quickly,” a line that captures the urgency among some private contractors and political backers who see speed and numbers as the key benchmarks for success.

The new ICE effort attempts to translate that energy into operational contracts. By paying bonuses tied to specific performance metrics — from the first-try confirmation of an address to clearing a target list within days — the agency is betting that bounty hunters and private contractors will move faster and deliver cleaner data than traditional internal processes. The focus on “time-stamped photographs of the location” aims to give enforcement teams a real-time picture as they prepare operations, while permissions to use mobile-phone and social-media data, along with automated skip-tracing, widen the net for locating undocumented immigrants in communities across the country.

Civil and legal concerns are rising alongside the momentum. John Sandweg, a former acting ICE director, called the privatization plan “plainly unlawful,” saying the government risks skirting legal boundaries by outsourcing key enforcement functions to bounty hunters paid per result. While immigration enforcement often relies on tips and outside data, critics argue that paying private contractors cash bonuses for finding people — especially when companies can mine vast amounts of personal data — invites mistakes, misidentification, and abuses that can be hard to correct once arrests and deportations begin.

Proponents counter that the threat landscape has changed and that the push is aimed at targeting people with criminal records or final removal orders. Mississippi’s House Bill 1484 and statements from local officials frame the program as a public safety effort focused on “bad actors and violent criminals.” The state pledges to regulate who can register as a bounty hunter and to structure rewards only after removals occur through legal channels. But the financial incentives are difficult to ignore: tying cash payouts to rapid address verification may push contractors to prioritize speed over verification quality, a trade-off that alarms immigration lawyers who warn about knock-on effects for families and employers if enforcement teams show up at the wrong address.

The ICE procurement materials reveal how private companies would build the machine. Contractors are expected to ingest government case data, cross-check with commercial databases, scour social media, and deploy investigators to photograph residences. They can apply automated “skip-tracing” to flag likely addresses using credit headers and utility records, and then synthesize that into a verified location report. The scope — handling thousands of names at a time and potentially scaling to 1 million cases — suggests a model where multiple vendors run parallel systems, each chasing performance bonuses based on accuracy and speed milestones.

The money points to a longer-term pivot. With more than $40 million committed to skip tracing contracts to date, and $33.5 million earmarked to just one vendor, the government is building capacity that outlasts any single operation. The more those systems are used, the more data pipelines get refined and the more the private sector embeds itself in everyday immigration enforcement. For the companies, performance-based cash incentives make the business stable and predictable: hit the metrics, collect the bonuses, and grow the workforce. For the government, contractors can be dialed up or down faster than hiring full-time officers.

On the ground, it will put bounty hunters and other private contractors deeper into neighborhoods where undocumented immigrants live and work, often alongside U.S. citizen family members. The program’s requirement for “time-stamped photographs of the location” implies contractors will surveil homes and workplaces to capture proof of address, a practice that can unsettle communities even before any arrests take place. Social media monitoring and mobile data analysis can also sweep up friends, co-workers, and relatives whose posts or locations intersect with a target’s footprint, broadening the privacy issues beyond the person listed in a file.

Technology companies stand to benefit, particularly vendors that sell off-the-shelf surveillance platforms tailored for real-time alerts. The mention of AI-driven social media monitoring systems, including platforms like Zignal Labs, signals that the government expects contractors to automate the hunt as much as possible. That could mean round-the-clock alerts whenever a target’s name, photo, or likely alias appears online, paired with geolocation clues from public posts. When combined with address histories and credit header data, these tools can escalate a lead from “possible” to “verified” quickly — the type of metric that triggers bonuses in ICE’s incentive structure.

There is also a political arc to the initiative. The push to scale private-sector deportation support follows a flurry of state-level measures that echo federal priorities under President Trump. Mississippi’s program is the most explicit in linking state money with federal outcomes, but proponents in other conservative states are watching the model closely. Bannon’s “people want this stood up quickly” comment captures a mood among some Trump allies that the federal government should outsource more aggressively to meet removal goals without waiting for a lengthy hiring surge inside ICE.

Legal challenges are likely if the program moves from procurement to full deployment. Sandweg’s “plainly unlawful” assessment sets a marker that former senior officials could testify against the structure, particularly the per-case cash rewards that look like bounties. Civil liberties advocates would likely question whether using “all technology systems available” crosses legal thresholds for surveillance, especially if contractors tap data sources that law enforcement would need warrants to use directly. Without strict guardrails, critics warn that private contractors might press right up to those lines — or over them — to hit success quotas.

ICE has not publicly released an implementation timeline beyond the procurement record dated October 31, 2025, but the contract structure suggests the agency wants a rapid start. The inclusion of performance bonuses “for metrics like first-try address identification or locating 90% of targets within a set timeframe” indicates the initial focus will be on speed-based wins that are easy to measure. If those early runs produce high numbers, pressure will build to expand the program’s scope and to add vendors. If results falter or high-profile errors emerge, the incentive structure could become a flashpoint for Congress and the courts.

Communities will feel the effects first. Employers that rely on mixed-status workforces could see sudden absences as enforcement actions flow from verified address lists assembled by private contractors. Schools and social services may face new strains if parents are detained after being located through social media or mobile data. And people with pending immigration cases — who are not the same as those with final orders — could get caught in the churn if address verification systems cast a wide net and refer leads without clear distinctions. The promise of fast, accurate, bonus-eligible results may collide with messy realities in apartments shared by multiple families, short-term sublets, or rural areas with inconsistent record-keeping.

For supporters, the potential upside is straightforward: more removals, faster. Barton put it simply when he said,

“This program is a vital step in assisting our law enforcement agencies,”

casting the use of bounty hunters and private contractors as a force multiplier for local and federal officers alike. Keen framed the state’s contribution as aligned with national policy under President Trump, saying,

“we are proud to do our part here in Mississippi to help support his agenda and protect our citizens.”

For ICE and the contractors, the immediate task is converting a high-level plan — and more than $40 million in commitments — into day-to-day fieldwork that produces the verified addresses and arrest opportunities the bonuses are designed to reward.

For critics, the warning is equally direct. Sandweg’s “plainly unlawful” label encapsulates concerns that the government is privatizing the most sensitive parts of immigration enforcement without sufficient oversight. That tension — between a drive for speed and the checks built into public law enforcement — will define whether this plan becomes a long-term pillar of federal policy or a short-lived experiment that triggers backlash.

ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations unit, which handles arrests and deportations, has said in past statements that it prioritizes public safety and operates under federal law and court oversight. The agency’s evolving use of contractors and surveillance tools in pursuit of those goals is now set to be tested at a new scale. As the bounty-style incentives roll out and private contractors begin working through lists of 10,000 names at a time, the balance between efficiency, accuracy, and legality will be watched closely by supporters, opponents, and the people most directly affected: undocumented immigrants whose names are on the lists, and the communities where they live and work. For official information on enforcement operations, readers can consult ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations page at ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations.