US mulling cash rewards for private bounty hunters to track immigrants: Report

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reportedly considering a plan to hire private bounty hunters, offering monetary bonuses for locating and reporting undocumented immigrants across the country.

According to a procurement document reviewed by The Intercept, companies hired by ICE will be given bundles of information on 10,000 immigrants at a time to locate, with further assignments provided in “increments of 10,000 up to 1,000,000.”

According to the solicitation, ICE is considering an “incentive-based pricing structure” that would reward contractors with monetary bonuses for quick and accurate results, such as correctly locating a person’s address on the first attempt or finding 90 percent of their targets within a specified period.

Also in February, Politico reported, Erik Prince, an ally of US President Donald Trump, was pushing for the formation of a private effort to locate immigrants and a “bounty program which provides a cash reward for each illegal alien held by a state or local law enforcement officer.”

The proposal includes the use of “skip-tracing” — a technique that relies on various data sources to locate individuals — which ICE is already funding through multimillion-dollar contracts, according to The Lever.

The data shared by ICE would contain government case files, location details, social media activity, and even photos or documents indicating where a person lives or works.

The plan involves both physical and digital forms of surveillance, with ICE allowing contractors to use commercially available monitoring tools to verify immigrants’ addresses through “enhanced location research,” which includes real-time automated and manual skip tracing.

The new procurement document notes that “the government is contemplating awarding contracts to multiple vendors” due to the large number of immigrants whose whereabouts it seeks to confirm.

US immigration raids and protests: ICE agent pepper sprays pastor in face during protests

Daily raids on suspected illegal immigrants in the US have led to widespread protests, with activists facing arrests and clashes with security forces.

The crackdown on so-called “illegal” immigrants has been part of Trump’s campaign promise to deport the people who did not have immigration documentation and close down the Mexico-US border.

Trump’s administration set a goal for ICE to arrest at least 3,000 undocumented migrants per day.

But people living in the country legally, including some with permanent residence, have also been arrested for various excuses, including foreign students who participated in pro-Palestine protests.

Commentators believe that this order contradicts Trump’s earlier pledge to protect freedom of speech in the United States.

Within hours of taking office, Trump signed several executive actions with impacts both domestically and internationally.

Soon, incoming refugee flights were canceled, troops were deployed to the southern border, and federal authorities were authorized to arrest individuals in or near schools and churches.

The fast-track deportation procedure, known as “expedited removal,” allows immigration authorities to deport individuals without a hearing before an immigration judge.

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