HR7161-119

What This Bill Does

The No Private Bounty Hunters for Immigration Enforcement Act restricts private involvement in civil immigration enforcement. After enactment, the Secretary of Homeland Security may not enter any contract or memorandum of understanding for skip tracing, surveillance, or location verification to enforce civil immigration laws. DHS must terminate existing contracts or MOUs that provide those functions and amend other DHS contracts or MOUs to prohibit those functions. Contractors and subcontractors at any tier cannot use subcontractors to perform the barred work. Federal funds cannot be used to pay a private entity on a per-person or bonus basis for locating someone subject to a civil immigration detainer. The bill preserves a narrow exception for publicly available data analytics tools operated solely by a federal contractor performing administrative data management under direct government supervision, if the work does not involve field surveillance, personal contact, or barred activity. The DHS Inspector General must audit each DHS contract within 30 days to ensure compliance. Skip tracing is defined as locating a person using address, employment, social media, or other personal data.

Who Benefits and How

Immigrants subject to civil enforcement, immigrant communities, privacy advocates, and civil-liberties organizations benefit because private bounty-style locating, surveillance, and skip tracing for civil immigration detainers would be curtailed. DHS oversight officials and the DHS Inspector General benefit from a clear statutory audit mandate. Federal employees may have clearer responsibility for immigration enforcement functions rather than relying on private per-person incentives.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Private investigation firms, data brokers, surveillance contractors, skip-tracing vendors, and immigration-enforcement contractors lose existing or future DHS work involving location verification, surveillance, or skip tracing. DHS contracting officers must terminate, amend, and monitor contracts and MOUs. DHS program offices may need to replace private locating services with government-supervised alternatives. The DHS Inspector General must audit each DHS contract within 30 days. Contractors using administrative data tools must stay within the narrow direct-supervision exception.

Key Provisions

• Bars new DHS contracts or memoranda for skip tracing, surveillance, or location verification in civil immigration enforcement.
• Requires DHS to terminate existing contracts for those functions and amend other contracts to prohibit them.
• Prohibits contractors from using subcontractors at any tier for barred immigration-enforcement locating functions.
• Bars federal per-person or bonus payments to private entities for locating people subject to civil immigration detainers.
• Preserves a narrow exception for supervised public-data analytics tools that do not involve field surveillance or personal contact.
• Requires the DHS Inspector General to audit each DHS contract for compliance within 30 days.