{"id":230533,"date":"2026-04-02T16:18:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T20:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/ices-private-bounty-hunters-use-ai-to-track-immigrants\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T17:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T21:15:14","slug":"ices-private-bounty-hunters-use-ai-to-track-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/02\/ices-private-bounty-hunters-use-ai-to-track-immigrants\/","title":{"rendered":"ICE\u2019s Private Bounty Hunters Use AI to Track Immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org\/blog\/ice-bounty-hunters-use-ai-track-immigrants\/\">ICE\u2019s Private Bounty Hunters Use AI to Track Immigrants<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org\/blog\/ice-bounty-hunters-use-ai-track-immigrants\/\">https:\/\/www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org\/blog\/ice-bounty-hunters-use-ai-track-immigrants\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-04-02 16:18:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org\">www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The federal government\u2019s hunt for immigrants is ramping up. Each month, private contractors receive tens of thousands of names from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and are asked to locate those individuals as quickly as possible so that ICE can conduct targeted enforcement operations to arrest and detain those individuals. What makes this system new is not just its scale \u2014 contractors may receive up to 50,000 names per month, with the program potentially targeting more than 1 million people \u2014 but how it is achieved. Contractors are using a mix of data tools, online research, and, increasingly, artificial intelligence to locate people \u2014 allowing for a faster and much larger sweep than before.<\/p>\n<p>This is called skip tracing: finding someone using public records, databases, online information, and, sometimes, physical surveillance. Skip tracing has long been used by debt collectors, bail bondsmen, and private investigators. Now it is being used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to find individuals for immigration enforcement. While skip tracing has traditionally been used by private entities, its use in government immigration enforcement raises new legal questions about privacy, due process, and the role of private actors in government surveillance.<\/p>\n<p>ICE skip tracing involves using government data, online research, and in-person verification \u2014 such as taking photos of a person\u2019s home or workplace \u2014 to confirm their whereabouts. Zoom out, and it reveals a massive AI-assisted surveillance system targeting more than 1 million immigrants in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Reporting by Scripps News found that ICE awarded contracts to 13 private companies to provide \u201cskip tracing services nationwide.\u201d These open-ended contracts were issued in December 2025 and could total $1.2 billion over two years. The Intercept estimated that up to 1.5 million immigrants could be targeted using a mix of digital tools and in-person&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org\/blog\/ice-bounty-hunters-use-ai-track-immigrants\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ICE\u2019s Private Bounty Hunters Use AI to Track Immigrants https:\/\/www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org\/blog\/ice-bounty-hunters-use-ai-track-immigrants\/ Publish Date: 2026-04-02 16:18:00 Source&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/immigration-impact-ice-ai.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-230533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230535,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230533\/revisions\/230535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}