‘Deplorable’: ICE Hires Firm Accused of ‘Torture’ to Track Down Undocumented Children

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has awarded a contract to a private security company that has faced accusations of “torture” and “enforced disappearance” to assist in tracking down undocumented immigrant children who arrived in the US alone, a contracting document shows.

ICE has stepped up its work so much in pursuing these minors in the US that it has contracted out some of its mission to a third party to put “boots on the ground” and locate immigrant children previously released from US government custody.

The agency characterizes the work of tracing immigrant children who reached the US without authorization and were released into communities while they go through immigration court proceedings as “safety and wellness checks”. ICE says it wants to confirm the children’s location, school enrollment and overall wellness, including checking for signs of abuse or trafficking, according to the contracting document.

But an internal ICE document reviewed by the Guardian last year shows ICE actually runs the operations with the aim of deporting the children or pursuing criminal cases against them – or their adult sponsors sheltering them legally in the US. A critic at the time called ICE’s efforts “backdoor family separation”.

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Now, as that program continues, the agency in mid-April gave a contract to a US company, MVM Inc, to assist in carrying out such operations.

MVM is a longtime security contractor, based in Ashburn, Virginia, with about 2,500 employees, and provides detention and transport services to federal immigration agencies. It previously provided security services to the CIA.

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In 2024, MVM was sued by two Guatemalan fathers and their respective children in a California federal court for alleged “torture, enforced disappearance and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment”, according to the lawsuit, for the role it played in the family separation policy at the border under the first Trump administration that prompted widespread uproar.

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MVM asked a judge to toss the lawsuit, saying the company had “openly denounced” the family separation campaign, adding that since it was a private company, it should not be held liable for a US government policy.

The two Guatemalan children, a 16-year-old and a three-year-old, were separated from their respective fathers in 2017, “with the substantial assistance of MVM”, the lawsuit says. The case continues to move through federal court.

In March 2025, a judge dismissed some of the claims on procedural grounds but allowed the case to continue based on the torture, enforced disappearance, and inhuman and degrading treatment claims.

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MVM is a longtime government contractor that now mostly works with federal agencies to transport immigrant children and families between government-run facilities. It was started in the late 1970s by former Secret Service agents and ballooned into a significant government contractor. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that MVM had a secretive contract with the CIA in Iraq for security guards to protect CIA staff.

MVM also has a track record of allegations of abuse with its previous immigration-related contract work. In 2018, MVM was accused of holding immigrant children in a vacant office building for three weeks amid the family separation crisis under the first Trump administration. During the Covid-19 pandemic, MVM detained immigrant children and families in hotels before they were removed from the country. MVM also had the contract to run the secretive Guantánamo Bay immigration detention center, until it was taken over by another company in 2025. Most recently, last August, the non-profit newsroom Injustice Watch reported that MVM locked an immigrant woman and her baby inside a Chicago hotel for five days.

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