ICE awarded GEO Group and 12 other firms up to $1.2 billion to locate immigrants, supplying contractors 50,000 names a month

On December 16, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded a slate of indefinite-delivery contracts for nationwide "skip tracing" services to 13 private companies, together worth up to roughly $1.2 billion over two years. Among them was B.I. Incorporated, the wholly owned subsidiary of private-prison operator GEO Group, whose two-year award the company valued at up to approximately $121 million and described as covering "enhanced location research with identifiable information, commercial data verification, and physical observation." Other recipients included Capgemini Government Solutions, Omniplex World Services, Bluehawk, SOS International, EnProVera and Gravitas Professional Services; ICE added Global Recovery Group to the group a month later. The awards were made under full and open competition after ICE removed the $180 million ceiling it had originally placed on the solicitation.

The government's own contract description sets out what the arrangement requires. Each month ICE assigns a contractor roughly 50,000 last known addresses of people on its non-detained docket, and the contractor is to verify or replace those addresses using automated and manual real-time skip tracing, search engines, commercial databases and in-person observation, and to collect photographs and documents confirming where each person lives or works, prioritizing residence over workplace. Bloomberg News reported that ICE supplies names and other personal data on the people it targets and expects photographs of homes and workplaces in return, and that in November 2025 the agency told contractors a report may be followed by "an enforcement action." The American Immigration Council later calculated that the contracts, taken together, could reach more than a million people.

GEO Group entered the program as ICE's largest contractor, having won more than $800 million in agency business during 2025, and its subsidiary has supplied ICE with electronic monitoring of people on the non-detained docket for more than two decades. The skip-tracing award opened a new line of business for a company that is also paid to detain many of the people ICE arrests. ICE did not respond to Bloomberg News's request for comment, and GEO Group referred questions to the agency.

Updates

2026-01-20 — Krishnamoorthi introduced bill to ban DHS skip-tracing contracts [7]

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi introduced the No Private Bounty Hunters for Immigration Enforcement Act, which would bar the Department of Homeland Security from contracting with private entities for skip tracing, surveillance or location verification in civil immigration enforcement, require existing contracts authorizing that work to be terminated or amended, and prohibit per-person or bonus-based payments. The bill was endorsed by the ACLU and referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

2026-02-01 — Capgemini announced sale of its ICE-contracted U.S. subsidiary [8]

Capgemini said it would immediately begin selling Capgemini Government Solutions, the U.S. subsidiary holding one of the ICE skip-tracing contracts, after the French finance minister pressed the company in parliament to account for its ICE work. Chief Executive Aiman Ezzat said he had only recently learned of the contract and that its nature and scope raised questions relative to the group's usual business.

2026-04-02 — Immigration Council found program could target over 1 million people [9]

An American Immigration Council analysis by Steven Hubbard reported that the 13 December 2025 contracts amounted to an AI-assisted surveillance system capable of targeting more than a million immigrants, with each contractor able to receive up to 50,000 cases a month and tasks that include time-stamped photographs of homes and workplaces.

2026-08-06 — GEO reported no skip-tracing revenue amid ICE funding lapse [10]

On GEO Group's second-quarter 2026 earnings call, Executive Chairman George Zoley said the company recorded no revenue from its skip-tracing contract during the quarter, attributing it to the lapse in ICE appropriations during the government shutdown, and management said it expected the contract to ramp to an annualized $60 million in the second half of 2026.