WASHINGTON — Under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE frequently dominated headlines through aggressive messaging, high-budget videos and commercials, and highly visible photo opportunities. Her public prominence also made her a political target, particularly after the deaths of two U.S. citizens during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis.
Kristi Noem’s successor, Markwayne Mullin, has taken a different approach. Mullin told senators during a March 2026 hearing that he does not want the department to be “the lead story every single day.” He added that he wants ICE to “scale back the visible involvement” and instead focus more on transportation.
The Department of Homeland Security announced in March 2026 that local police agencies seeking to participate in the 287(g) task force program could be “reimbursed for the salaries and benefits.” The reimbursement applies only to those who are “trained to participate.”
If DHS follows through on that promise, the program would “become the largest federal police funding effort in the country by far.” The initiative was already funded through the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
FWD.us, a public policy research center, estimated that between 13,800 and 15,800 officers and deputies have been trained through the task force program.
The 287(g) program allows local jails to hold people with active deportation orders so ICE can process them for removal. The task force version operates similarly by allowing trained local authorities to arrest people suspected of immigration violations.
In Oklahoma, Mark Johnson said that “16 of his officers have completed task force training, and that it has streamlined their work.” Those officers “now regularly take people directly to ICE offices.” However, Johnson rejected the idea that the department’s budget depends on how many people are detained.
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein obtained an ICE financial ledger and reported that “nationwide, there are huge financial incentives for local police completing immigration arrests.” An analyst from FWD.us found that “ICE paid — or at least earmarked — more than $170 million in incentives to local law enforcement for the successful location of illegal aliens provided by ICE.”
An additional $6 million was allocated for the location of any “Unaccompanied Alien Child.”
In Pennsylvania, five local jails have “billed the federal government more than $21 million in 2024 and 2025 for using their facilities as detention space for ICE.” The number of people admitted to those facilities doubled from January 2024 to December 2025.
Police agencies and jails are not the only entities involved. “Private contractors are receiving large federal awards to help identify and locate people the government wants to detain.” According to a Scripps News investigation published in January, “late last year, DHS awarded contracts potentially worth $1.2 billion to 13 private companies.”
Those companies were contracted to provide “skip-tracing services” along with support from “artificial intelligence.”
Reports from The Washington Post stated that “ICE officials have told contractors that the overall desire is to complete cases as quickly as possible.”
Critics have described the arrangement as resembling a “bounty system.” In January, Raja Krishnamoorthi introduced the No Private Bounty Hunters for Immigration Enforcement Act. The bill seeks to prevent DHS from turning “immigration enforcement into a profit-seeking enterprise,” according to Krishnamoorthi.
According to a report from OpenSecrets, “a relatively small cluster of private prison operators, charter airlines and transportation contractors dominated ICE’s largest contracts in 2025.” Those private companies also provided significant support to political committees affiliated with Donald Trump.
Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, vice president of the Project on Government Oversight, described the issue during the March congressional hearing, saying, “The problems in federal acquisitions are deeply rooted at all federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.”
The expansion of outsourcing to local law enforcement agencies and private companies has intensified scrutiny over the methods ICE is willing to use to detain immigrants. Financial incentives for outside partners have further fueled criticism that the system increasingly resembles a bounty structure.
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