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“We host dams, geothermal plants, and windmills, but we don’t even get electricity. The power is used for industries and businesses, not for our communities.”
Manila – Police forcibly entered the home of Indigenous woman human rights defender Elma Awingan-Tuazon in Pinukpuk, Kalinga on November 30, leaving her family shaken. Elma, a long-time advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental protection, has opposed dam and mining projects that threaten ancestral lands in the province.
Her case is not isolated. Indigenous leaders and human rights advocates say it reflects a broader pattern of harassment and intimidation faced by communities resisting large-scale energy and extractive projects promoted as solutions to the climate crisis.
Read: Rights group, kin denounce harassment in Kalinga
To supposedly address the climate crisis, governments and corporations are pushing wind farms, solar parks, geothermal plants, and mining for so-called transition minerals across Asia. For many Indigenous communities, however, these projects have resulted in land loss, heightened military presence, and escalating human rights violations.
Impacts on Indigenous communities
“For us, renewable energy transition means the construction of large dams, wind, and solar farms on our ancestral lands, and even the expansion of mining within our territories,” said Kim Falyao, an Igorot youth leader from the Cordillera and national coordinator of Siklab Philippines Indigenous Youth Network.
Indigenous youth leader Kim Falyao poses for the camera, calling for an end to militarization in ancestral lands during the Human Rights Day protest in Manila on Dec. 10. Photo by Chantal Eco/Bulatlat
Falyao said renewable energy projects entering ancestral lands often lead to environmental destruction, including soil erosion, and land degradation, at a time when the Philippines is increasingly vulnerable to disasters. She said large-scale projects require extensive alterations to the land where Indigenous communities live, making mountains and farmlands more prone to landslides.
She added that Indigenous communities are displaced to give way to the construction of these projects.
Falyao also stressed that many of these projects proceed without genuine free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC).
“Free, prior, and informed consent should not be treated as just a process, it is a right of Indigenous peoples, rooted in our right to self-determination. Communities themselves should decide what projects enter their ancestral lands,” Falyao said.
Beyond environmental damage, the Indigenous youth linked renewable energy projects to militarization.
“When renewable energy projects enter ancestral lands, militarization follows. There are more soldiers, more detachments, more encampments. And because of that, human rights violations also increase,” she said.In Kalinga alone where 23 renewable energy projects have been approved, Cordillera People’s Alliance said that at least five military battalions operate within the province contributing to a climate of intimidation and human rights violations.
Surge of renewable energy projects in the Cordillera
Kalinga has become a hotspot for overlapping dam, mining, and renewable energy projects, raising concerns among Indigenous communities about displacement and repression.
Department of Energy (DOE) data as of April 30, 2025 show that 102 renewable energy projects have been awarded in the Cordillera region. Only 18 projects are in commercial operation, while 84 remain under development or pre-development.
Hydropower dominates the region, with 92 awarded projects, followed by geothermal, solar, wind, and biomass projects, most of which are still in early stages. Indigenous leaders warn that the sheer number of proposed projects, many located within ancestral lands, raises concerns about cumulative environmental damage and forced displacement.
Site of the 250MW Gened-2 Hydropower Project in Kabugao, Apayao. The province was designated as one of UNESCO’s biosphere reserves recognizing the province’s rich indigenous culture and biodiversity. Photo by Chantal Eco
“This is why we are very concerned,” Falyao said. “The more projects that come in, the more pressure there is on our land and our communities.”
Falyao cited the forced entry into Elma Awingan-Tuazon’s home as part of a broader pattern of harassment linked to contested energy projects.
Read: Special Report | Push for renewables threatens lands and livelihood in the Cordillera
Documented rights violations across Asia
According to Indigenous Peoples Rights International (IPRI), large-scale renewable energy and transition-related projects have been linked to widespread human rights violations affecting Indigenous peoples across Asia. These include land grabbing, lack of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), forced displacement, militarization of communities, and attacks against Indigenous leaders and defenders.
Since 2021, IPRI has documented nearly 500 cases of violence and harassment against Indigenous peoples in Asia, ranging from arrests and intimidation to killings. Twenty-four of these cases are directly linked to energy transition projects, including dams, geothermal plants, wind farms, and large-scale solar installations.
According to IPRI, these 24 cases have affected almost 100,000 Indigenous women, men, and children, many of whom live in or near ancestral lands targeted for renewable energy development.
“These projects are presented as climate solutions, but they are being implemented at the expense of Indigenous peoples. This is green colonization,” Joan Carling, executive director of Indigenous Peoples Rights International, told Bulatlat.
Carling said projects imposed without consent have resulted in land grabbing, food insecurity, and community division, while increasing risks for Indigenous women defenders.
“We host dams, geothermal plants, and windmills, but we don’t even get electricity. The power is used for industries and businesses, not for our communities,” she said.
A pattern beyond the Philippines
The situation in Kalinga reflects similar struggles faced by Indigenous communities in other parts of Asia, where resistance to large-scale renewable energy projects has also led to project suspensions.
In Assam, India, Indigenous and Adivasi communities have been resisting a large solar power project that would have taken over 18,000 bighas, or about 2,500 hectares, of ancestral land.
“There was no free, prior, and informed consent. There was no proper consultation,” said Pranab Doley, an Indigenous human rights defender from India working with affected communities.
Doley said sustained protests by Indigenous communities forced authorities to suspend the project, highlighting the role of community resistance in challenging large-scale energy developments imposed without consent.
“Large-scale solar takes massive amounts of land. It destroys forests, hills, rivers, and communities. That can never be just,” Doley said.
In Poco Leok, Flores Island in Indonesia, Indigenous communities have opposed a government-backed geothermal project promoted as a carbon-reduction measure.
Indigenous residents of Poco Leok, Indonesia, were arrested by police on Oct. 2, 2024, while protesting the entry of a company planning to build a geothermal power plant into their community. Photo supplied
“The government says this project will reduce carbon emissions. But in reality, it threatens the lives of Indigenous people,” Kristianus Jaret, an Indigenous youth leader from Poco Leok, said in Bahasa Indonesia.Jaret said community resistance led to the suspension of the project, after residents protested and raised concerns over land rights, health impacts, and the loss of livelihoods.
Members of the Indigenous community in Poco Leok gather at Gendang Mucu on Aug. 17, 2025 to mark Indonesia’s Independence Day and celebrate their victory against the proposed geothermal power plant. Photo supplied
“People suffered health problems, and their farms were no longer productive. That is why we rejected this project,” he said, referring to community experiences linked to the Ulumbu geothermal plant in Flores.
Not against renewable energy
Indigenous leaders stressed that they are not opposing renewable energy itself or the need to address the climate crisis.
“We are not against renewable energy, what we are against are projects that destroy our land and put our communities in danger,” Falyao said.
For Carling, a just transition must be grounded in Indigenous rights and community decision-making.
“There is no just transition if Indigenous peoples are being sacrificed,” she said.
Indigenous leaders said a just transition must begin with respect for Indigenous rights, including free, prior, and informed consent. Without these guarantees, they warned that renewable energy development risks repeating the same patterns of land dispossession and exclusion long faced by Indigenous communities across Asia. (RVO)
The post Indigenous peoples face rights violations in Asia’s renewable energy boom appeared first on Bulatlat.
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Panggigipit ng NTF-Elcac sa organisador ng mga magsasaka sa Southern Tagalog, kinundena
(philippinerevolution.nu)
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'An Absolute Joke': Trump DOJ Partially Releases Epstein Files, Many Heavily Redacted
(www.commondreams.org)
The US Department of Justice on Friday released a massive—but incomplete—trove containing hundreds of thousands of records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a move that came as Democratic lawmakers vowed to pursue "all legal options" after the Trump administration blew a deadline to disclose all of the files.
The DOJ uploaded the files—which can be viewed here in the section titled "Epstein Files Transparency Act"—to its website on Friday. Earlier in the day, Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the agency would not release all the Epstein files on Friday, as required by the transparency law signed last month by President Donald Trump.
Friday's release includes declassified files, many of them heavily redacted and some of which were already publicly available via court filings, records requests, and media reporting. Files include flight logs and masseuse lists.
Curiously, a search for the words "Trump" and "Epstein" in the posted documents returned no results.
— (@)
While not accused of any wrongdoing, Trump was a former close friend of Epstein, who faced federal sex trafficking charges at the time of his suspicious 2019 death in a New York City jail cell.
Responding to the DOJ's document release and delay in fully disclosing the files, Elisa Batista, campaign director at UltraViolet Action, said in a statement that “if the Trump administration had its way, they would undo the sacrifice of survivors who came forward to demand transparency and accountability, as well as all those abused by Epstein who were unable to."
“Trump’s failure to release the Epstein files is an insult to survivors and a further stain on an administration that continuously bends over backwards to protect abusers—and just violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act to do so," Batista added. "We will continue to fight alongside the brave survivors—many of whom were young girls when they were abused by Epstein—who took great risk to reveal Epstein’s globe-spanning sex trafficking network.”
Britt Jacovich, a spokesperson for the progressive political action group MoveOn, said following Friday's release that “President Trump’s Department of Justice is breaking the law by holding all of the Epstein files hostage, and yet again, Trump is doing absolutely nothing."
"Trump doesn’t care about the victims or the millions of Americans calling for justice," Jacovich added. "He only cares about protecting the rich and powerful, even those who abuse young women and children. Every single person named in the Epstein files and involved in the cover-up should face accountability, regardless of their political party. No more delays, no more obstruction.”
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
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Mitt "47%" Romney's Post-Career Call to Tax the Rich Met With Kudos and Criticism
(www.commondreams.org)
In a leaked fundraiser footage from the 2012 US presidential campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney infamously claimed that 47% of Americans are people "who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it." On Friday, the former US senator from Utah published a New York Times opinion piece titled, "Tax the Rich, Like Me."
"In 2012, political ads suggested that some of my policy proposals, if enacted, would amount to pushing grandma off a cliff. Actually, my proposals were intended to prevent that very thing from happening," Romney began the article, which was met with a range of reactions. "Today, all of us, including our grandmas, truly are headed for a cliff: If, as projected, the Social Security Trust Fund runs out in the 2034 fiscal year, benefits will be cut by about 23%."
"Typically, Democrats insist on higher taxes, and Republicans insist on lower spending. But given the magnitude of our national debt as well as the proximity of the cliff, both are necessary," he argued. "On the spending-cut front... Social Security and Medicare benefits for future retirees should be means-tested—need-based, that is to say—and the starting age for entitlement payments should be linked to American life expectancy."
"And on the tax front, it's time for rich people like me to pay more," wrote Romney, whose estimated net worth last year, when he announced his January 2025 retirement from the Senate, was $235 million. "I long opposed increasing the income level on which FICA employment taxes are applied (this year, the cap is $176,100). No longer; the consequences of the cliff have changed my mind."
— (@)
"The largest source of additional tax revenues is also probably the most compelling for fairness and social stability. Some call it closing tax code loopholes, but the term 'loopholes' grossly understates their scale. 'Caverns' or 'caves' would be more fitting," he continued, calling for rewriting capital gains tax treatment rules for "mega-estates over $100 million."
"Sealing the real estate caverns would also raise more revenue," Romney noted. "There are more loopholes and caverns to be explored and sealed for the very wealthy, including state and local tax deductions, the tax rate on carried interest, and charity limits on the largest estates at death."
Some welcomed or even praised Romney's piece. Iowa state Rep. JD Scholten (D-1), a progressive who has previously run for both chambers of Congress, declared on social media: "Tax the rich! Welcome to the coalition, Mitt!"
— (@)
US House Committee on the Budget Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who is part of the New Democrat Coalition, said: "I welcome this op-ed by Mitt Romney and encourage people to read it. As the next chair of the House Budget Committee, increasing revenue by closing loopholes exploited by the wealthiest Americans will be a top priority."
Progressive Saikat Chakrabarti, who is reportedly worth at least $167 million and is one of the candidates running to replace retiring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), responded: "Even Mitt Romney now agrees that we need to tax the wealthiest. I call for a wealth tax on our billionaires and centimillionaires."
Michael Linden, a senior policy fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, said: "Kudos to Mitt Romney for changing his mind and calling for higher taxes on the rich. I'm not going to nitpick his op-ed (though there are a few things I disagree with), because the gist of it is right: We need real tax reform to make the rich pay more."
— (@)
Others pointed to Romney's record, including the impactful 47% remarks. The Lever's David Sirota wondered, "Why is it that powerful people typically wait until they have no power to take the right position and effectively admit they were wrong when they had more power to do something about it?"
According to Sirota:
The obvious news of the op-ed is that we've reached a point in which even American politics' very own Gordon Gekko—a private equity mogul-turned-Republican politician—is now admitting the tax system has been rigged for his fellow oligarchs.
And, hey, that's good. I believe in the politics of addition. I believe in welcoming converts to good causes in the spirit of "better late than never." I believe there should be space for people to change their views for the better. And I appreciate Romney offering at least some pro forma explanation about what allegedly changed his thinking (sidenote: I say "allegedly" because it's not like Romney only just now learned that the tax system was rigged—he was literally a co-founder of Bain Capital!).
"And yet, these kinds of reversals (without explicit apologies, of course) often come off as both long overdue but also vaguely inauthentic, or at least not as courageous and principled as they seem," Sirota continued, stressing that "when Romney had real power, he fortified the rigged tax system that he's only now criticizing from the sidelines."
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
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Philadelphia A rally in Philadelphia on Nov. 28 kicked off the 103-mile March for Mumia to Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution (SCI) Mahanoy to demand proper health care and elder care for incarcerated people and the release of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The march started at the Market Square Monument in . . .
Continue reading 12 days vs. 44 years: The 103-mile march to free Mumia at Workers.org
From Workers World via This RSS Feed.
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Variety (12/17/25): FCC chair Brendan Carr “suggested that he was simply holding broadcasters to a legally required ‘public interest standard’ when he…threatened ABC and its affiliates if they did not ‘take action’ on [talk host Jimmy] Kimmel.”
FAIR readers know well how the content of news is connected to its structure. Even as we see reporters doing community-serving, powerful-afflicting work, the key questions, when push comes to editorial shove, are: Who owns it? Who pays the bills?
Right-wingers have long known that. And they’ve known the importance of pummeling regulators into giving them whatever they want. Former RNC chair Rich Bond called it “working the refs.”
Under Trumpist Brendan Carr, the FCC is, as is well known, threatening stations that deliver content they disapprove (FAIR.org, 2/26/25), very much in violation of the First Amendment. Asked in a Senate hearing (Variety, 12/17/25) if it’s “appropriate to use your position to threaten companies that broadcast political satire,” Carr responded that “any licensee that operates on the public airwaves has a responsibility to comply with the public interest standard.”
But Trump’s FCC is also seeking to further loosen ownership limits and allow powerful media conglomerates to usurp more of the airwaves (CJR, 10/20/25; FAIR.org, 10/8/25). A filing from the group Free Press calls out the expected “devastating consequences on the public’s welfare and ultimately democracy itself.”
The filing’s author, Free Press senior advisor Derek Turner (12/18/25), explained:
Broadcast TV chains and their lobbyists claim that consolidation is in the public interest, arguing that mergers and acquisitions result in an increase in local news—and that local reporting declines in the absence of consolidation. This is nonsensical, and it runs counter to all available evidence.
Television broadcasters continue to do well, and brag to Wall Street that they have cornered the distinct market niche that local-TV stations serve. But those financial fortunes don’t spur greater investment in journalism. These giant companies work to slash costs after mergers—striving to maximize their profits to generate greater returns for shareholders.
Allowing allegedly local broadcast firms to acquire even more stations—in markets where they already have stations, and in new cities—will put control over news in still fewer, more corporate hands. And it will decrease the numbers of local journalists reporting on communities they actually live in.
And, not for nothing, it will increase these big conglomerates’ ability to extract monopoly rents from advertisers and pay-TV distributors.
Which is why we say: Support independent outlets with a different bottom line.
From FAIR via This RSS Feed.
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Rights Groups Warn FBI Probe of Anti-ICE Activity Portends New Crackdown on Lawful Dissent
(www.commondreams.org)
Rights groups are expressing alarm over new reporting about the FBI carrying out nationwide anti-terrorism probes against activists protesting against federal immigration enforcement officers.
The Guardian on Friday published a report detailing an internal FBI document that outlines "criminal and domestic terrorism investigations” into “threats against immigration enforcement activity” in 23 regions across the US.
The FBI document, which was dated November 14, is a response to National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by President Donald Trump in late September that demanded a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts."
The FBI report cites two violent attacks against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in Texas to argue that there has been "an escalation in violence compared to past attacks, which primarily resulted in property damage."
Additionally, the FBI report directs agents to look for "indicators" that an anti-ICE activist may be planning to carry out an attack on immigration enforcement officials, including "stockpiling or distributing firearms," as well as using encrypted messaging apps and "conducting online research" about immigration agents' movements and locations.
The last two of these three "indicators" are raising red flags for rights groups, which are warning that they could be used as the pretext for mass infringement of constitutional rights to speak freely and protest peacefully.
Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Guardian that the FBI appeared to be treating US citizens with suspicion for engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment.
"It is not illegal to do online research about the publicly available movements of government officers or to communicate through encrypted apps like Signal or WhatsApp," she said. "While the document refers to using encrypted communications to ‘discuss operational planning’, that term is undefined and ambiguous, leaving it open what kinds of conversations might draw FBI scrutiny."
Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project, expressed concern to the Guardian that the FBI document is "infused with vague and over-broad language, which was exactly our concern about NSPM-7 in the first place."
"It invites law enforcement suspicion and investigation based on purely First Amendment-protected beliefs and activities," Shamsi explained. "People who are entirely innocent of any wrongdoing can be subjected to surveillance or investigation. That imposes stigma. It can wrongly immesh people in the criminal legal system."
Adam Goldstein, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), published an analysis on Thursday that criticized a recently unearthed memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi that fleshed out the concepts laid out in NSPM-7.
In particular, Goldstein argued that Bondi's memo risks using law enforcement to investigate people based on their political ideologies rather than on suspicion that they are engaging in criminal activity.
"People who conspire to engage in actual criminal behavior should be investigated, arrested, and prosecuted," Goldstein wrote. "But these memos aren’t narrowly focused on groups that exist for the purpose of ideologically motivated violence, which act to bring about violence; they broadly condemn particular viewpoints and lay a foundation for a government watchlist of American groups which share those viewpoints."
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
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'Another Backdoor Deal'? Billionaire Trump Ally Larry Ellison at Center of TikTok Spin-Off
(www.commondreams.org)
A group of investors including Oracle—a software giant led by billionaire Trump ally and GOP megadonor Larry Ellison—is set to control TikTok's US operations under a spin-off agreement formalized Thursday, raising concerns of undue political influence on the short-form video app used by around 170 million Americans.
TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, signed a binding deal under which Oracle, the private equity group Silver Lake, the Abu Dhabi-based firm MGX, and other investors will hold an 80.1% stake in the newly formed US TikTok entity.
NPR reported that under the agreement, "TikTok's US algorithm will be retrained with only Americans' data" and "content moderation rules around what is permitted and what is not will be set by the new investor-controlled entity."
The deal, which stems from an executive order that President Donald Trump signed in September, averts a TikTok ban in the US.
Last year, former President Joe Biden signed widely criticized legislation that would have banned the platform in the US if ByteDance did not sell it. The measure was inserted into broader legislation that included billions in military aid for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel.
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who voted for the package that included the potential TikTok ban, called for close scrutiny of the new agreement. Warren pointed to the Trump administration's approval earlier this year of the merger of CBS News owner Paramount and Skydance—a company run by David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison.
"First Paramount/CBS and now TikTok. Trump wants to hand over even more control of what you watch to his billionaire buddies," Warren wrote in a social media post on Thursday. "Americans deserve to know if the president struck another backdoor deal for this billionaire takeover of TikTok."
Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, wrote in response to the deal that "TikTok has officially been sold to the worst people on Earth and no this is not an Onion headline."
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
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President Donald Trump—the self-described "most anti-war president in history"—on Friday said the US military is "striking very strongly" against Islamic State strongholds in Syria" following the killing of two Iowa National Guard members and an American civilian interpreter in the Mideast nation.
"Because of ISIS’s vicious killing of brave American Patriots in Syria, whose beautiful souls I welcomed home to American soil earlier this week in a very dignified ceremony, I am hereby announcing that the United States is inflicting very serious retaliation, just as I promised, on the murderous terrorists responsible," Trump said on his Truth Social network.
"We are striking very strongly against ISIS strongholds in Syria, a place soaked in blood which has many problems, but one that has a bright future if ISIS can be eradicated," the president continued. "The Government of Syria, led by a man who is working very hard to bring Greatness back to Syria, is fully in support."
"All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned—YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A.," he added.
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US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on X that "earlier today, US forces commenced OPERATION HAWKEYE STRIKE in Syria to eliminate ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites in direct response to the attack on US forces that occurred on December 13th in Palmyra, Syria."
According to the Wall Street Journal, Jordanian warplanes also took part in Friday's attacks, which reportedly hit more than 70 targets in Syria.
"This is not the beginning of a war—it is a declaration of vengeance," said Hegseth. "The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people. As we said directly following the savage attack, if you target Americans—anywhere in the world—you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you. Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue."
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that one of Friday's airstrikes killed ISIS leader Abu Yusif in Dayr az Zawr province in eastern Syria.
“As stated before, the United States—working with allies and partners in the region—will not allow ISIS to take advantage of the current situation in Syria and reconstitute," CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla said in a statement. "ISIS has the intent to break out of detention the over 8,000 ISIS operatives currently being held in facilities in Syria. We will aggressively target these leaders and operatives, including those trying to conduct operations external to Syria."
During his first term, Trump followed through on his promise to "bomb the shit out of" ISIS militants in Syria and Iraq, killing thousands of civilians in a campaign launched by former President Barack Obama in 2014. Trump prematurely declared victory over ISIS in 2018.
Since then, the Biden and Trump administrations have bombed Syria, where around 1,000 US troops remain.
— (@)
During his second term, Trump has ordered attacks on Iran, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and boats allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The president—who says he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize—has also deployed warships and thousands of troops for a possible war on Venezuela.
"Most anti-war president ever, also a winner of the FIFA Peace Prize, threatened to invade Venezuela for oil earlier this week and has now launched strikes in Syria," political commentator David Pakman said on X in response to Friday's attacks.
Some observers noted that the strikes on Syria took place on the same day that the Trump administration released some of the files related to the late convicted sex criminal and longtime former Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein.
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has hired a subsidiary of for-profit prison company GEO Group to aid in hunting down immigrants at their homes and places of work, according to records reviewed by The Intercept.
ICE has secured a deal with surveillance firm BI Incorporated as part of a new program, first reported in October by The Intercept, to use private bounty hunters to determine the locations of immigrants in exchange for monetary bonuses.
BI, which was acquired by the GEO Group in 2011, is one of several firms hired by ICE to provide “skip tracing” services, in which its teams of corporate investigators will use surveillance to track immigrants across the country to their homes and places of work so federal agents can easily swoop in and make arrests.
Records show ICE has already paid BI $1.6 million, with the potential for the contract to grow to as much as $121 million by the time it concludes in 2027.
ICE’s push to privatize its hunt for immigrants has drawn the scrutiny of Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., who warned it “invites the very abuses, secrecy, and corruption our founders sought to prevent.”
Neither BI Incorporated nor GEO Group immediately responded to a request for comment.
The deal illustrates a strategy of vertical integration within GEO Group, which has found a growing line of business operating for-profit immigration detention centers under the second Trump administration. In this case, the corporation stands to be paid by the federal government to both find immigrants and then to imprison them.
[
Related
Deportation, Inc.](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/19/deportation-abrego-garcia-ice-immigration/)
Shares of GEO Group, which donated to both Trump’s reelection campaign and his inaugural fund, spiked following his 2024 victory. Trump’s return to office has proven fortuitous for GEO Group: The president’s “Big Beautiful Bill” earmarked $45 billion for jailing immigrants. “This is a unique moment in our company’s history,” GEO Group CEO J. David Donahue told investors in May, “and we believe we are well-positioned to meet this unprecedented opportunity.”
GEO Group has faced decades of criticism over alleged mismanagement of its facilities and claims of rampant abuse of inmates. In August, The Intercept reported the suicide of a Chinese immigrant held at a GEO Group-operated prison in Pennsylvania. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal complaint over the facility in July, criticizing “horrific conditions” at the prison, including repeated instances of medical neglect.
In 2023, GEO Group was hit by a class-action lawsuit alleging the “months-long poisoning” from a chemical disinfectant of more than 1,300 inmates at a California immigration detention center. In May, Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, jailed for her criticism of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, alleged her GEO Group-managed jail delayed treatment while she experienced an asthma attack.
[
Related
ICE Plans Cash Rewards for Private Bounty Hunters to Locate and Track Immigrants](https://theintercept.com/2025/10/31/ice-plans-cash-rewards-for-private-bounty-hunters-to-locate-and-track-immigrants/)
The ICE contract record does not say whether BI would provide on-the-ground bounty hunting services, software-based investigative services, or a combination of both. ICE has previously told potential bounty hunting contractors, “It is dependent upon the vendor to complete the work required by contract,” but “Should a vendor choose to subcontract, that is at their discretion,” according to procurement correspondence reviewed by The Intercept.
BI has a long history in immigrant surveillance, having received hundreds of millions of dollars from the government to date through past contracts for ankle monitor-based tracking. The company specializes in remote surveillance and person-monitoring services, including sales of GPS bracelets and other tracking devices. “Location tracking enables individuals to work and live in the community while being monitored closely for curfews, movement, and more,” according to the company’s website. “BI offers ankle bracelet, wrist-worn, and mobile tracking solutions to meet the needs of varying risk levels.”
BI also touts its suite of software products, including case management applications for monitoring the movements of immigrants and other targets, as well as tools that allow agencies to chart a target’s “geographic and spatial location data” across Google Maps. It is unknown if the company has access to commercial mobile device locational data, or relies solely on body-mounted trackers.
But with many years of detailed GPS data pertaining to the every movement of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, BI and GEO Group hold a trove of locational information that would be of obvious value to the bounty hunting initiative.
In a November contracting document pertaining to the skip tracing effort, ICE told potential bounty hunting vendors they are “expected to provide their own internal skip tracing tools,” providing contractors with a great deal of latitude to employ surveillance products and techniques of their choosing. The document further noted that private ICE bounty hunters will not be provided credentials to identify them as agents of the government.
404 Media reported Thursday that ICE had also contracted with AI Solutions 87, “a company that makes ‘AI agents’ to rapidly track down targets.”
The post ICE Hires Immigrant Bounty Hunters From Private Prison Company GEO Group appeared first on The Intercept.
From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.
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