Illinois, Chicago, USA: Raja Krishnamoorthi has put forward new legislation designed to block the outsourcing of immigration enforcement responsibilities to private contractors that operate under profit-driven or incentive-based structures.

The proposal, introduced on January 20 and titled the No Private Bounty Hunters for Immigration Enforcement Act, seeks to bar the Department of Homeland Security from assigning core enforcement functions such as skip tracing, surveillance, and location confirmation to private firms.

“Converting immigration enforcement into a money-making operation crosses a dangerous threshold,” Krishnamoorthi said while explaining the purpose of the bill.

The Illinois lawmaker added that federal immigration efforts have already involved forceful measures, including deadly shootings and sweeping raids, often carried out with minimal openness and oversight. He contended that handing coercive authority to armed, for-profit contractors would further erode existing protections and accountability mechanisms.

Krishnamoorthi also claimed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has depended on private vendors for tracking and location-related services, many of which are connected to the for-profit detention sector. According to reports, these companies rely on commercial data and sophisticated monitoring technologies, intensifying concerns about responsibility and control in a privatized enforcement system.

Responding to the legislation, Kate Voigt, Senior Policy Counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, criticized the federal government’s direction, noting that recent immigration measures have increasingly leaned on severe and opaque practices.

Voigt said that promoting the use of private bounty hunters signals a wider trend of inhumane enforcement approaches and called on Congress to approve the bill promptly to safeguard communities and uphold constitutional protections.