The problem with private businesses running surveillance and detention centers is that they’re focused on profit — the more people they enroll, the more they can charge the government, said Carrie Peltier, a Roseville immigration attorney. 

“It’s extremely demoralizing for [immigrants] when they’re trying to follow the rules and they’re being treated like criminals,” she said. 

Oftentimes, ICE or the monitoring program will threaten people enrolled in the program to comply with the requirements or face detention, she added. 

Immigrants are required to observe different check-in practices at different frequencies, and attorneys say it’s a burdensome process with little transparency about the length of time they’ll be monitored. Immigrants are also given no information about why they’re in the surveillance program, or why they have to comply with a particular practice.

“Last Tuesday, I sent them a photo in the morning, and after that, I have to wait from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. — maybe they come, maybe they not,” Natalie said of one of her check-in requirements. “I have to stay in the house all day. It’s stress.” 

Natalie, who has no other family in the United States, said she has never missed a check-in.

“It’s too much; I’m alone to deal with” it, she said. “If I miss their calls, I don’t know what they’re going to do to me.” 

Contractor has long ties with ICE

The Intensive Supervision Appearance Program is an alternative to detention operated by BI Incorporated, a private company based in Boulder, Colorado, that supplies electronic monitoring tools and services to the federal government. The program assigns what they call “case specialists” to immigrants to ensure they attend their immigration court hearings and comply with ICE’s orders. 

BI Incorporated, a subsidiary of The GEO Group, ICE’s largest contractor, has operated the supervision program for more than 21 years with approximately 100 offices and close to 1,000 employees across the country. The GEO Group provides detention centers, electronic monitoring, ground transportation and air operations support for ICE, and is the agency’s largest contractor, according to its website.

BI Incorporated was awarded a two-year contract worth more than $1 billion last September to continue monitoring immigrants, according to The GEO Group’s website. 

The Washington Post reported last summer that ICE officers were instructed in a June 9, 2025, memo to significantly increase the number of immigrants under surveillance. Each immigrant under supervision generated about $3.70 in revenue per person per day for The GEO Group, according to the Post. 

Each time an immigrant sends a selfie to check in through the surveillance program’s app, the federal government pays roughly $1 to The GEO Group, according to The New York Times.  

“This is a cash cow,” said David Wilson, a Minneapolis immigration attorney. “That’s why there’s a lot of motivation to push it as some kind of alternative to ICE, because it’s money in the bank.” 

Sahan Journal reached out to the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, BI Incorporated and The GEO Group for comment. A GEO Group spokesperson referred questions to ICE. 

The surveillance program provides “case management services and utilizes advanced technology” to track immigrants, according to a statement ICE provided to Sahan Journal. 

The surveillance program uses monitoring technology to “enhance compliance and increase court appearance rates,” read ICE’s statement. ICE did not answer additional questions. 

Yolanda, a mother of three, told Sahan Journal earlier this year that she has been following check-in requirements with the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program for nearly a decade. For six years, she answered a phone call once a week and memorized a four-number code that was given to her. Then, she was required to call the program back and repeat the code.

“They don’t really explain to you nothing; you just have to do this and that,” said Yolanda, who is not being named due to her immigration status and fears of retaliation. 

After years of regular check-ins for her asylum case, Yolanda, pictured with her family on Feb. 6, 2026, was arrested by ICE during an in-person check-in in early February, then released with an ankle monitor. Yolanda, pictured at far left, is not being identified by her legal name because of her pending case and fears of retaliation. Credit: Dymanh Chhoun | Sahan Journal

This past February, Yolanda said she received a message from the program to bring her two teenage sons to her upcoming appointment. When she arrived, ICE quickly detained her and her two sons for seven hours inside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal ICE building. They let them go after she showed the officers her pending asylum application, but they made her wear an ankle monitor. She said they didn’t tell her how long she would have to wear it.

“This is not a way to help people,” said Ry Siggelkow, who has worked closely with immigrants wearing ankle monitors and also serves as a board member of Pueblos de Lucha y Esperanza. “I think it’s a form of torture.” 

Pueblos de Lucha y Esperanza, an immigrant-led advocacy nonprofit based in Minneapolis, published a graphic novel titled, “Unshackling Freedom,” featuring the true stories of three immigrants struggling to live with ankle monitors. 

An office in Bloomington 

Sahan Journal visited the supervision program’s office at 7850 Metro Parkway in Bloomington on a recent afternoon, where a constant stream of people, some wearing ankle monitors, entered and exited the building carrying papers. 

Two security guards standing in front of the building’s front doors told Sahan Journal that staff were not available for comment, and that only attorneys and people with appointments were allowed to enter the building. 

Immigrants placed on monitoring typically have pending immigration cases for expired work visas, are asylum seekers or have other immigration-related claims. 

Ricardo Modenesi, 51, of New Hope, was arrested on Jan. 16 when federal agents approached him while he was filling his car with gas. He was detained for a month at detention centers in El Paso, Texas, and New Mexico. He applied for bond, a immigration judge granted his release, and ICE placed an ankle monitor on him.

“They think of us like a criminal,” said Modenesi.

Modenesi immigrated to the United States more than 20 years ago from Peru and overstayed his work visa, which was expired when he was arrested. He has no criminal record and has a wife and two children.  

“Most of my friends know; they get mad about why I have to do this, but I say, ‘It’s what it is.’ I have to. I cannot take it off,” he said of the ankle monitor. “My dad is so, so mad. He said, ‘Why, here, they treat you so bad?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, it’s whatever Mr. Trump is doing right now.’” 

The Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, which is run by BI Incorporated, a private contractor employed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is run out of a Bloomington office, pictured on February 26, 2026. Credit: Dymanh Chhoun | Sahan Journal

ICE officers review several factors such as criminal history, family ties, caregiver status and medical conditions when deciding who to monitor, according to the agency’s website. However, the practice of applying those factors is inconsistent, said Evan Benz, senior attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights in Washington D.C. 

“ICE ultimately has the authority and the responsibility of setting the conditions of a person’s participation in ISAP [Intensive Supervision Appearance Program],” he said.   

In immigration court, judges decide whether or not to release an immigrant from ICE custody based on factors such as their flight risk and level of risk to public safety. They can set conditions of release, but ICE has repeatedly overstepped judges’ rulings by requiring immigrants to enroll in the supervision program, said Benz. 

“They [ICE] are claiming the authority to add additional conditions of release that the immigration judge never ordered,” he said. “It raises a lot of due process issues, and it’s something that would never be accepted in the criminal legal system.”

When the government is using a third-party contractor, Wilson said, there is less oversight and flexibility to make personalized adjustments. 

“These programs become very inflexible, because they are locked into a contract rather than common sense,” he said.

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