Trump is HIRING private bounty hunters to chase down 66,387 deported people and demand they pay $998-a-day fines.
The solicitation went up Tuesday morning, with bidders given until 2 p.m. Friday to get their quotes in.
Customs and Border Protection calls the work tracing and payment recovery services. What that means: a private company locates each deported person in Mexico, Honduras or Guatemala, confirms the address, and hand-delivers a printed notice of what they owe the United States.
To prove it found the right person, the document says a contractor may submit photographs of the home, utility bills, employment records, or a death certificate.
The fines are civil penalties for staying after a deportation order or failing to leave under a voluntary departure agreement. No crime attached. Congress set the daily charge at $500 in 1996, and inflation adjustments pushed it to $998. DHS has applied it retroactively as far back as five years, producing individual debts of more than $1.8 million. Across the department, unpaid penalties came to $423 million as of July 2026.
Payment can only go through the federal pay. gov portal, which requires a U.S. bank account. Human Rights Watch has documented that U.S. authorities confiscated the phones and identification of many people it interviewed before removing them, leaving them unable to open accounts or reach money they already had.
Before you go: Trump made $1.4 billion off crypto last year, and Congress is voting on a bill to protect it. Thankfully John Oliver just ripped the whole thing apart on air, and by the end it is genuinely hard to believe this is legal. Watch it on YouTube: https://bit.ly/4wCmmut