Which specific Google Cloud products have been purchased by ICE and CBP and in which contract documents are they listed?

Checked on January 29, 2026
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Executive summary

Public contracting records and reporting show Google Cloud technology has been bought—often via third‑party resellers—by Homeland Security components, with explicit line items including “Google Cloud Platform Services,” “Google Cloud SW licenses,” a free Anthos trial for CBP, and aggregate purchases described as “Google cloud products” in ICE spending reports [1] [2] [3] [4].

1. What the documents and reporting actually say about specific products

Multiple news investigations and contract notices name specific Google offerings: a CBP purchase for “Google Cloud Platform Services” (about $20,000) and a separate CBP purchase for “one year of Google Cloud SW licenses” (about $200,000) appear in contract records reported by Business Insider in 2022 [1]. Reporting also documents a free trial of Google’s hybrid‑cloud product Anthos provided to CBP [2], and earlier files show a third‑party reseller arranged a roughly $750,000 deal in 2017 to supply a Google cloud service to USCIS, a DHS component [4]. More recent federal contracting summaries recorded ICE spending that included approximately $530,000 in “Google cloud products” in a September procurement slice described by Forbes [3].

2. Where those line items show up in contract documents and press reporting

The most detailed public traces are intermediary purchase orders and contracting summaries reported by investigative outlets: Business Insider identified the Thundercat Technology and Panamerica Computers reseller purchase orders that list the $20,000 “Google Cloud Platform Services” and the $200,000 “one year of Google Cloud SW licenses” for CBP [1]. The Anthos trial surfaced through internal Google and CBP disclosures reported by Business Insider in 2019, which cited contract previews and internal emails [2]. Forbes’ analysis of federal contracting records aggregated ICE line items and flagged a $530,000 entry labeled generically as Google cloud products in a September spending tranche [3]. The Verge reported the 2017 USCIS reseller deal worth nearly $750,000 [4].

3. How Google products were delivered and why the paperwork looks indirect

A consistent throughline in the record is that Google’s cloud tools were often sold through third‑party resellers or embedded in larger procurements rather than as stand‑alone, direct commercial‑with‑the‑government contracts—a pattern documented by Business Insider and Techdirt that explains why contract text can be terse and why product names sometimes appear as line items rather than full master agreements [5] [6]. That reseller path is the same mechanism that shows up in the CBP $20k and $200k purchases and in the 2017 USCIS reseller arrangement [1] [4].

4. What exactly those Google products do — and what the documents do not show

The public records and reporting name product families (Anthos; Google Cloud Platform Services; Google Cloud software licenses) and aggregate dollar amounts, but they do not, in the sources provided, include full statements of work or redacted technical annexes that would reveal feature‑level uses inside ICE or CBP systems [2] [1] [3]. Forbes and Bloomberg‑style procurement summaries note dollar totals and vendor line items but stop short of describing operational deployment or integration with surveillance systems [3] [7].

5. Competing narratives, company responses, and reporting limitations

Google and other cloud vendors have at times publicly said they avoid certain immigration‑enforcement work, while internal communications and employee protests documented in reporting show tension when reseller deals or trials surface—Google Cloud’s leadership defended some engagements publicly as recently as 2022, even as employees protested earlier CBP Anthos activity [2] [7]. Investigations show clear evidence of product names and dollar line items in contract records, but the available reporting and public procurement summaries do not provide the complete contract files or detailed SOWs that would definitively map product features to enforcement functions [1] [4].

Want to dive deeper?
Which government contract documents (contract numbers and FedBizOpps/USASpending entries) correspond to the CBP $20,000 and $200,000 Google Cloud purchases?
What is Anthos and what technical capabilities could a hybrid‑cloud Anthos deployment provide to a federal agency like CBP?
How do reseller and subcontractor pathways work for cloud vendors selling to federal agencies, and where are those subcontracting records publicly filed?