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SinlessOnslaught According to Snopes, it's not ICE directly hiring bounty hunters, but immigration bond agents.
Chuck Jordan, association president of the National Association of Fugitive Recovery Agents (NAFRA), said ICE did not deputize bounty hunters to arrest people without lawful status, but rather immigration bond agents could contract bounty hunters to track down and detain individuals who skipped bail.
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At this time and for the past several decades, bounty hunters (bail bond fugitive recovery agents) that work within the context of the commercial bail bond industry are permitted to apprehend illegal aliens that have been released from ICE custody after posting a bail bond underwritten by a bail bondsman (Surety) provided they have been contracted to do so by said bondsman.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/23/bounty-hunters-ice-arrest-undocumented-immigrants/Is there any connection between the bond agents and ICE? Well, now the story becomes murky.
In late 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of which ICE is a component, ran the visa bond pilot program. Under the six-month pilot, consular officers could ask applicants to the B-1 and B-2 visitor visas from countries with high "overstay" rates who were ineligible for a visa but had been granted a waiver to post bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 before entering the U.S. The program used "government approved" bond agents to allow travelers without the ability to pay up front to still gain access to the U.S.
The Federal Register listing for the program said, "DHS/ICE will collect all bonds and retain the funds, as appropriate, in the instance that a bond is breached." The listing did not mention the use of bounty hunters.
