ICE Awards Palantir $32 Million for Voluntary Return Program

The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded Palantir Technologies Inc. a $30 million contract to support its assisted voluntary return program. This award is part of a broader agreement valued up to $157.5 million, tasking the company with identifying individuals for enforcement efforts and tracking self-deportations.

In a separate move, the agency issued a nearly $2 million order for Palantir to build an investigative leads suite and improve the agency's tipline. The program is implemented with support from the International Organization for Migration.

Immigration lawyers have criticized the program as coercive, arguing that the government uses threats of arrest and deportation to unstable regions to pressure undocumented immigrants into leaving. These pressures align with directives from President Donald Trump, who has threatened to arrest undocumented immigrants who do not choose to self-deport.