Operations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) units across the United States offer significant clues regarding the “class alliances” underpinning Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Institutions including companies like Palantir and Deloitte have reaped more than $22 billion in total earnings from contracts with agencies situated at the center of the aggressive immigration measures Donald Trump implemented over the past year.<\/p>\n
As\u00a0reported<\/a><\/span>\u00a0by the\u00a0Financial Times<\/em>\u00a0(FT), consultants, technology groups, charter airlines, and a wall construction company managed by a presidential ally were among the primary beneficiaries of the surge in spending by ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).<\/p>\n This funding bonanza began following Trump\u2019s inauguration for a second term last January and has accelerated since the enactment of the “big, beautiful bill” in July.<\/p>\n According to the FT\u2019s analysis of government contracting data, the data intelligence group Palantir has secured $81 million in contracts from ICE since January 2025.<\/p>\n Consultancy firm Deloitte, meanwhile, obtained more than $100 million in new contracts from ICE and CBP during the same period.<\/p>\n Regional companies secure major contracts<\/strong><\/p>\n The Fisher Sand & Gravel group, led by Republican donor Tommy Fisher\u2014which signed a contract to construct sections of a wall on the southern US border\u2014became the top earner from CBP contracts, generating over $6 billion in revenue since July.<\/p>\n The single largest beneficiary of ICE contracts was CSI Aviation, a company organizing charter flights for the agency. This firm has secured over $1.2 billion in business since Trump returned to office last January.<\/p>\n These windfalls coincide with a period in which ICE spending on contracts more than doubled in the two quarters following the passage of Trump\u2019s historic legislation, rising from $1.5 billion in the previous six months to $3.7 billion.<\/p>\n CBP spending on private sector companies increased sevenfold between the first and second halves of 2025. The agency reported $2 billion in new contract work this month alone\u2014a sum exceeding the total for the entire first half of 2025.<\/p>\n Much of the agencies’ contracting is for routine work, such as modernizing IT systems or providing outsourced data center staffing, often stemming from previous administrations.<\/p>\n Palantir building a “self-deportation tracking” system<\/strong><\/p>\n However, other contracts relate to new tactics employed by the Trump administration to identify, detain, and deport undocumented immigrants, or to encourage them to “self-deport.”<\/p>\n Palantir, which has held contracts with the agency for over a decade, signed a $30 million deal in April to build an operating system to be used for “self-deportation tracking,” according to a federal contract announcement.<\/p>\n The company also signed a contract to provide tools intended to “facilitate operations for the selection and apprehension of illegal aliens.”<\/p>\n Palantir CEO Alex Karp had previously dismissed concerns regarding the group\u2019s work for the US government.<\/p>\n Karp stated last year:<\/p>\n “I will use all my influence to ensure this country remains skeptical on immigration and possesses a deterrent capacity. Do we have to pretend that having borders is immoral?”<\/em><\/p>\n AI-based language models in the service of immigration enforcement<\/strong><\/p>\n According to the 2025 DHS AI Use Case Inventory published by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE has been\u00a0using<\/a><\/span>\u00a0Palantir\u2019s AI products to process large volumes of civilian reports since May of last year.<\/p>\n This tool, named the “AI-Enhanced ICE Report Processor,” utilizes large language models (LLMs) to summarize or categorize received reports and offers functionality to translate reports received in non-English languages into English.<\/p>\n The “Advanced Lead Identification and Enforcement Target Selection” tool, which ICE has utilized since June of last year, was also purchased from Palantir.<\/p>\n This tool, known by the acronym “ELITE<\/a><\/span>,” uses artificial intelligence to identify leads\u2014such as the addresses of enforcement targets, including for deportation\u2014and allows agents to share this information.<\/p>\n It has also been revealed that ICE uses Palantir-based generative AI for internal developers’ code writing and system administration.<\/p>\n Anduril\u2019s surveillance towers in the “Big, Beautiful Bill”<\/strong><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s legislation also mandates that all new border surveillance towers be certified as “autonomous.” According to a\u00a0report<\/a><\/span>\u00a0published in\u00a0The Intercept<\/em>\u00a0last July, only Anduril\u2019s “towers” meet this requirement.<\/p>\n Signed into law by President Trump on July 4th, this bill provides significant spending increases for military and law enforcement projects, including over $6 billion for various border security technologies.<\/p>\n These initiatives include the expansion of the “virtual wall”\u2014a growing network of sensor-equipped surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border. On this border, computers are increasingly assuming the task of detecting and apprehending migrants.<\/p>\n Anduril began its operations by selling software-backed surveillance towers to CBP. The company promotes its “Sentry Tower” series for its “autonomous” capabilities, which use machine learning software to constantly scan the horizon and detect potential objects of interest (such as people, vehicles, or animals attempting to cross the border) without the need for human manpower to monitor sensor data.<\/p>\n Thanks to bipartisan support for the vision of locking down the border with computerized eyes, Anduril has become a dominant player in border surveillance, surpassing incumbents like Elbit and General Dynamics.<\/p>\n Indirect support from Big Tech<\/strong><\/p>\n Deloitte, one of the largest public sector contractors in the US, accepted recent contract updates providing further funding for “law enforcement systems and analytics for enforcement and removal operations.”<\/p>\n Its contracts also contain updated provisions for “internet research and data analysis support services” for ICE\u2019s target identification operations division.<\/p>\n Many major technology companies do not contract directly with the federal government, but their products and services are offered through vendors, making it difficult to determine the financial benefits they derive from the funding surge.<\/p>\n Amazon and Microsoft, the world\u2019s two largest cloud groups, provide services worth at least $75 million and $93 million, respectively, to US agencies.<\/p>\n These services are primarily provided through third-party vendors such as Dell Federal Systems.<\/p>\n In September, ICE awarded a $24 million contract to a third party to provide “hosting support” for services offered by Amazon\u2019s cloud division.<\/p>\n Additionally, it paid Dell $19 million for Microsoft enterprise licenses.<\/p>\n Smaller tech groups, such as Motorola Solutions, have also signed contracts with ICE.<\/p>\n The Illinois-based group holds $19 million in contracts in its own name, while a third-party vendor won a $260 million contract to provide Motorola radios and batteries to personnel involved in enforcement actions.<\/p>\n Furthermore, AI technologies from various major tech companies are being utilized. ICE used a GPT-4 based AI tool from OpenAI to review resumes for recruitment.<\/p>\n AI technologies from Meta, Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic are also in use.<\/p>\n Land and warehouses for new prisons<\/strong><\/p>\n Despite protests in small towns and cities across the US, the Trump administration continues to purchase warehouses it plans to convert into immigrant prisons as part of a project that could represent the largest expansion of detention capacity in US history.<\/p>\n According to<\/a><\/span>\u00a0Bloomberg<\/em>, the cost of purchasing just two warehouses was $172 million. A third warehouse in El Paso, Texas, could become one of the largest prisons in the country with a capacity of 8,500 beds once completed as planned.<\/p>\n These deals mark the latest development in ICE\u2019s plan to utilize 23 warehouses to detain thousands of immigrants arrested by federal agents in Minneapolis and other cities.<\/p>\n On January 16, according to a local court filing, the administration paid $102 million for a plot of land near Hagerstown, Maryland. A week later, the government paid $70 million in cash for a warehouse in Surprise, Arizona.<\/p>\n The prices, which are roughly in line with the industry average for the warehouse market, cover the purchase of these currently vacant spaces.<\/p>\n ICE must pay companies to equip the buildings with toilets, showers, beds, dining, and recreation areas, and subsequently to operate them as detention centers.<\/p>\n The warehouses, most of which were originally designed and marketed as e-commerce distribution facilities, are crucial to the administration\u2019s $45 billion construction of immigrant detention facilities.<\/p>\n In recent weeks, the federal government has toured potential sites in more than 20 cities with companies and shared designs with them, including preferred layouts for at least 15 locations.<\/p>\n According to sources speaking to\u00a0Bloomberg<\/em>, companies that will convert these warehouses into prisons have been asked to submit bids for the initial locations, starting with Hagerstown.<\/p>\n The pattern is evident here as well: For instance, in Salt Lake City, the warehouse designated by ICE as a future “mega-center” prison is owned by the Ritchie Group, a local family business.<\/p>\n Following pressure from protesters arriving at their offices, the company announced it had “no plans to sell or lease the property in question to the federal government.”<\/p>\n Meanwhile, KPB Services, the company that won the tender for the design to convert warehouses in Kansas into detention centers,\u00a0appears<\/a><\/span>\u00a0to be a shell company.<\/p>\n ICE has increased detention capacity by leveraging long-standing relationships with private prison companies such as CoreCivic and Geo Group. These companies have provided ICE access to additional beds in their existing prisons, purchased and leased new facilities, and reopened shuttered ones.<\/p>\n In earnings calls held in November, these companies stated they could make a total of more than 30,000 beds available should the federal government request them.<\/p>\n