‘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 child’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”.

“Accusations that ICE is ‘targeting’ and arresting children are FALSE and an attempt to demonize law enforcement,” a DHS spokesperson said on Friday. “Rather than separating families, ICE asks parents if they want to be removed with their children or if the child should be placed with someone safe the parent designates.”

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.

MVM did not respond to a detailed request for comment by time of publication.

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.

“MVM physically took thousands of children away from their parents and transferred them to shelters,” the lawsuit said. “MVM transported and harbored these children using unmarked vehicles, commercial airlines, and makeshift detention centers.”

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.

Eighteen different companies offered their services to ICE to assist in the “wellness checks” operation, according to a document posted publicly on a government contracting website. But the other companies that vied for the contract lacked “the critical ‘boots on the ground’ child welfare personnel and infrastructure needed to physically locate and conduct wellness checks on children,” the document said. MVM, however, did appear to have the resources ICE was seeking, according to a review of the document.

The contract is supposed to run for one year. The amount ICE is paying MVM is redacted, along with the number of “wellness checks” the agency wants them to perform.

“MVM contractors have ZERO immigration enforcement authority. This partnership, as part of the UAC Safety Verification Initiative, represents ICE’s commitment to protect vulnerable children from sexual abuse and exploitation. The primary focus of this initiative is to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure that they are safe and not being exploited or abused,” the DHS spokesperson added, using the official term for the program to conduct checks on children who immigrated to the US unaccompanied and have been placed with sponsors.

Last year, the Trump administration began efforts to track down immigrant children who had entered the US alone to request asylum or reunite with family members already in the US. Such children largely arrive at the US-Mexico border and either turn themselves in or are apprehended by border officials.

After an unaccompanied immigrant child enters the US, they are placed under the custody of the office of refugee resettlement (ORR). While their immigration case, which is handled by ICE, plays out, ORR will place the children in shelters, in foster homes or under a sponsor’s care if available. Typically, sponsors, who complete an assessment process and background checks, are the children’s relatives in the US; at times, they are unrelated adults.

In the past year, ICE, in partnership with local law enforcement agencies, has begun to track down those children, many of whom the Trump administration says have gone “missing”, to provide “wellness checks”. But the operations have been criticized by many immigration attorneys and advocates.

“This all seems like a ploy to do two things: one, find either kids or their sponsors to arrest and deport. Or, two, scare children into self-deporting,” said Michael Lukens, the executive director of the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, which provides legal representation to immigrant children. “It’s really deplorable. It’s really concerning.”

For years, Trump administration allies pointed to a 2024 homeland security inspector general report that found that ICE was not able to adequately track unaccompanied minors. They used that report to push a narrative that unaccompanied immigrant children have been lost and trafficked, Lukens said.

“Their parents know where they are, their lawyers know where they are, usually the courts know where they are. It’s just ICE doesn’t have their address in a file,” said Lukens. “Those kids were never missing but they’re using it as an excuse to do these ‘wellness checks’.”

The inspector general report suggested understaffing at ICE and deficient cross-agency communication is mostly to blame for the agency’s inability to keep track of the children, rather than actual trafficking.

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 ecretive Guantánamo 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.

“We have seen MVM harm children in federal immigration custody in egregious ways for many years now,” said Neha Desai, the managing director of children’s human rights and dignity at the National Center for Youth Law. “It is both deeply disturbing and completely unsurprising that this government has hired MVM to conduct so-called ‘wellness checks’. These checks have already terrorized numerous children and have led to family separation throughout the country.”

“What will come next once MVM is involved will surely be even worse,” Desai added.