Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) has expressed “grave concerns” over a plan by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to award monetary bonuses to private bounty hunters, according to a letter reviewed by The Intercept.
ICE is currently considering awarding contracts to companies interested in providing “skip tracing” services. These services would deploy privatized investigators to track down immigrants residing inside the U.S. The plan, first reported by The Intercept, states that these bounty hunters will be tasked with conducting surveillance and ultimately pinpointing the home addresses of “aliens,” a term defined by the Department of Homeland Security as “a person who is not a citizen or national of the United States.”
Under this proposal, bounty hunters could earn bonus payments based on how many immigrants they help the government apprehend, and how quickly.
In a letter sent Monday to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Rep. Krishnamoorthi raised concerns about accountability related to the outsourcing proposal. He wrote:
> “Allowing private contractors to perform enforcement activities under a system of performance-based financial incentives, essentially bounty hunting, outsources one of the government’s most coercive powers to actors who operate with little oversight and limited public accountability. These contractors are not subject to the same scrutiny, discipline, or transparency that restrains federal officers, and entrusting them with powers of investigation and surveillance risks creating an enforcement apparatus that functions beyond the reach of ordinary checks and balances. Once the state begins contracting out its power to police, it invites the very abuses, secrecy, and corruption our founders sought to prevent.”
Krishnamoorthi also highlighted his worries about how the plan could further blur the line between federal authority and the private sector, adding a corporate profit motive to the government’s increasingly chaotic and freewheeling domestic immigration operations.
He added:
> “In such a system built on quotas and cash rewards with minimal oversight, mistakes are not just possible — they are certain. The pressure to hit numbers replaces the judgment, training, and accountability that should define real law enforcement.”
In addition to voicing his alarm over the proposal, Krishnamoorthi is requesting that Secretary Noem clarify several outstanding questions about how the private bounty hunter system would operate. This includes whether contractors will be required to identify themselves as agents of the federal government.
ICE did not respond to questions about Krishnamoorthi’s inquiry. However, the agency issued a statement saying:
> “The Request for Information is solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a Request for Proposal nor does it restrict the Government to any acquisition approach. As part of its market research, ICE is issuing this RFI to determine the estimated number of interested vendors capable of meeting this requirement. The government may use the responses to this RFI for information and planning purposes.”
https://theintercept.com/2025/11/10/ice-bounty-hunters-immigrants/
