The Trump administration is preparing to hire a private contractor to locate migrants who have already been deported from the United States in an effort to collect unpaid civil immigration fines, expanding its enforcement efforts beyond U.S. borders.
According to procurement documents reviewed by WIRED, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is seeking bids for a program known as Tracing and Payment Recovery Services, which would authorize investigators to find deported migrants in countries including Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras and notify them of outstanding financial penalties.
The proposed contract, valued at up to $9 million over two years, would require investigators to verify an individual's current residence using photographs, utility bills, employment records, court documents, or other evidence deemed credible by the U.S. government. Contractors would also be instructed to hand-deliver government-approved notices, in English and Spanish, informing migrants of the debts they allegedly owe.
The initiative stems from the Trump administration's revival of a little-used provision of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which allows the federal government to impose civil penalties on migrants who fail to comply with final removal orders.
Under that law, migrants can be fined up to $998 per day, with penalties accumulating for as long as five years. Some individuals have reportedly received fines approaching $1.8 million, while additional collection fees imposed by third-party agencies have pushed some balances even higher.
As of July, the Department of Homeland Security said it had issued more than $84 billion in immigration-related fines, although officials have not disclosed how much money has actually been recovered.
"The work would cover Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala, and potentially other countries," WIRED reported after reviewing the contracting documents. The publication said investigators would conduct "commercial data verification and physical observation services" to confirm where deported migrants are living.
Legal advocates argue the effort raises significant due process concerns, particularly because many migrants have already left the United States.
"Going after folks who are abroad is going to undermine their purported promise to forgive these fines once someone has left the country," attorney Trina Realmuto of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance told WIRED. "But that doesn't surprise me."
Hasan Shafiqullah, supervising attorney with the Legal Aid Society's Immigration Law Unit, told the publication that he has seen collection agencies add hundreds of thousands of dollars in administrative fees to some government penalties.
"I've seen some third-party collection agencies add $500,000 in additional administrative fees on top of the U.S. government's fees," Shafiqullah said.
Immigration attorneys also question whether the government can realistically collect debts from people living abroad, particularly because the procurement documents specify that payments would be made through Pay.gov, a system that generally requires access to a U.S. bank account.
The proposal appears to build on the administration's broader immigration enforcement strategy. Earlier this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded contracts worth up to $1.2 billion to multiple private companies to locate migrants living inside the United States. The new overseas program would extend that model to individuals who have already been deported.
The Department of Homeland Security has simultaneously promoted the CBP Home mobile application, saying migrants who voluntarily leave the United States through the app may qualify to have certain "failure-to-depart" fines forgiven. However, not all immigration-related fees are eligible for waiver, and critics say the new overseas collection effort sends mixed signals to migrants who complied with removal orders.
If implemented, the program would mark one of the most far-reaching attempts by the U.S. government to pursue immigration-related financial penalties beyond its borders, relying on private investigators rather than federal agents to locate deported migrants and seek repayment.
