Sponsors (5)
The bill trades stronger privacy protections, limits on contractor incentives, and faster contract oversight for potential slower immigration case processing, transition costs, and increased DHS workload as enforcement tools are constrained.
Immigrants and the public benefit from removal of per-person or bonus payments to contractors, reducing financial incentives for bounty-style locating and lowering risk of abusive or predatory contractor behavior.
Immigrants will face less private-sector surveillance and reduced government use of sensitive personal data (addresses, employment, social media) for locating people, improving privacy and civil‑liberties protections.
Taxpayers and the public gain stronger accountability because DHS Inspector General audits of relevant contracts are required within 30 days, improving oversight and compliance monitoring of contractor practices.
Law-enforcement and the public may experience slower civil immigration case processing because DHS could lose or have reduced contractor investigative capacity to locate individuals.
Taxpayers and DHS may incur administrative and transition costs from terminating or amending existing contracts and implementing new contract rules.
Restrictions on contractor tools could shift locating work back to DHS staff, increasing workload and potentially requiring new hiring and training for federal employees.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced January 20, 2026 by S. Raja Krishnamoorthi · Last progress January 20, 2026
Prohibits the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from using private contractors or subcontractors to perform skip tracing, surveillance, or location verification for civil immigration enforcement and forbids per-person or bonus payments to private entities for locating people subject to civil immigration detainers. DHS must not enter new contracts or MOUs that perform those functions, must end existing contracts/MOUs that do so, and must amend other contracts to remove those functions. The DHS Inspector General must audit DHS contracts within 30 days to check compliance. A narrow exception allows use of a publicly available data analytics tool operated solely by a federal contractor under direct government supervision when the tool is used only for administrative data management and does not involve field surveillance or personal contact.