Contractor Paying Random People $300 to Physically Track Immigrants for ICE
A current pilot project aims to pay former law enforcement and military officers to physically track immigrants and verify their addresses to give to ICE for $300 each. There is no indication that the pilot involves licensed private investigators, and appears to be open to people who are now essentially members of the general public, 404 Media has learned.
The pilot is a dramatic, and potentially dangerous, escalation in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. People without any official role in government would be tasked with tracking down targets for ICE. It appears to be part of ICE’s broader plan to use bounty hunters or skip tracers to confirm immigrant’s addresses through data and physical surveillance. Some potential candidates for the pilot were recruited on LinkedIn and were told they would be given vehicles to monitor the targets.
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Contractor Paying Random People $300 to Physically Track Immigrants for ICE
“The more I listened to it, the more I’m like, something doesn’t sound right,” a person who was briefed on the pilot plans told 404 Media.Joseph Cox (404 Media)
ICE Plans to Spend $180 Million on Bounty Hunters to Stalk Immigrants
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is allocating as much as $180 million to pay bounty hunters and private investigators who verify the address and location of undocumented people ICE wishes to detain, including with physical surveillance, according to procurement records reviewed by 404 Media.The documents provide more details about ICE’s plan to enlist the private sector to find deportation targets. In October The Intercept reported on ICE’s intention to use bounty hunters or skip tracers—an industry that often works on insurance fraud or tries to find people who skipped bail. The new documents now put a clear dollar amount on the scheme to essentially use private investigators to find the locations of undocumented immigrants.
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Do you know anything else about this plan? Are you a private investigator or skip tracer who plans to do this work? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.This post is for subscribers only
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Subscribe nowICE Plans to Spend $180 Million on Bounty Hunters to Stalk Immigrants
Newly released documents provide more details about ICE's plan to use bounty hunters and private investigators to find the location of undocumented immigrants.Joseph Cox (404 Media)
