As For-Profit Companies Battle Over ICE Contracts, Immigrants Are Caught in the Middle

Salus Worldwide Solutions, the firm led by William Walters, holds an exclusive DHS contract worth up to $915 million to run the Trump administration's "self-deportation" program under Project Homecoming — signing up detained immigrants for voluntary departure, buying their plane tickets, and processing exit payments. Rival contractors fought over the award: deportation flight operator CSI Aviation sued over the procurement (a judge rejected the challenge in May), while Walters argued CSI and private prison giant GEO Group stood to lose money if migrants left voluntarily rather than sitting in detention awaiting forced removal. DHS's own investigation found agency personnel had traded emails with Salus before the bid, sharing nonpublic details about the contract's budget and specifications. Attorneys for detainees said Salus representatives have approached migrants inside ICE facilities with self-deportation paperwork, sometimes only in English — a choice they argue amounts to coercion under detention conditions. The investigation is a collaboration between Mother Jones, POGO, and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University.