What specific AWS contracts has ICE signed since 2020 and what do their scopes include?
Executive summary
Since 2020 public reporting shows no single, fully executed, line-item “AWS contract” from ICE that is both large and transparently detailed; instead the record is a mix of solicitations for a major cloud hosting program (RFQ1491747), multiple small direct awards to AWS partners, and long-standing hosting relationships—most prominently Palantir’s Investigative Case Management (ICM) software running on AWS—that together amount to millions in cloud spending and operational hosting on AWS [1] [2] [3].
1. The named solicitations and notices: RFQ1491747 and the $100M cloud push
ICE publicly advertised a solicitation for “ICE Cloud (AWS), (GCP) and Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Hosting Support” (RFQ1491747), signaling intent to contract for infrastructure hosting, migration and management across AWS, Google Cloud and Azure; that RFQ was posted in May 2021 and is repeatedly cited in reporting about ICE’s multi-cloud procurement plans [1] [4]. Earlier coverage framed the program as a roughly $100 million, multi-year cloud investment to be delivered via third-party contractors that would manage access to AWS and Azure services and marketplaces [5] [6] [7].
2. Documented spending and small direct awards to AWS or partners
Bloomberg Government and follow-up reporting estimate ICE’s direct AWS-related spend as comparatively small in FY2020—about $850,000 from March 2018 through that fiscal year—while DHS components like CBP recorded far larger AWS purchases (roughly $21 million) and ICE spent materially on Microsoft/Azure products as well [2] [4] [7]. Multiple outlets note that much of what looks like “AWS revenue” tied to immigration enforcement flows through third parties or partners rather than single, large direct prime contracts [8] [9].
3. The Palantir connection: hosted systems and scope of services
A concrete AWS-linked capability used by ICE is Palantir’s Investigative Case Management (ICM) system and other Palantir-hosted tools—Palantir runs its software on AWS, and Palantir contracts with ICE have funded data-mining and case management tools used in enforcement operations; reporting says Palantir earned more than $24 million from ICE in the 2020 government fiscal year and that Palantir’s software is hosted on AWS infrastructure [2] [3] [10]. Those hosting arrangements mean AWS provides the underlying infrastructure for systems that collect, integrate and analyze biometric and case data for ICE investigations, though the software and operational responsibilities rest with Palantir and ICE [3] [11].
4. Other named programs and tools using AWS: RAVEn and third‑party resellers
Reporting identifies at least one ICE program using AWS indirectly: a data‑mining tool called RAVEn was described as using Amazon Web Services, and multiple news investigations show Amazon, Microsoft and Google sometimes appear on contracts through third‑party resellers and integrators, complicating efforts to map direct AWS‑to‑ICE contracts [8]. Business Insider and other outlets document a pattern in which cloud providers supply approved infrastructure but revenue and contractual responsibility are mediated by resellers, subcontractors, and software vendors [8] [9].
5. What these contracts and scopes collectively mean—and what remains unknown
Taken together the public record shows ICE seeking and using cloud hosting, infrastructure management, platform and marketplace access, and support for hosted analytic/case‑management systems (RFQ language and reporting) while much of the operational capability is delivered by third parties like Palantir; however, reporting does not produce a single, fully transparent master contract between ICE and AWS after 2020 that itemizes services, data access rules, security boundaries, or total costs in one place, and public sources do not disclose complete task orders, detailed scopes of work, or how biometric and sensitive personal data flows are governed in many of these arrangements [1] [2] [3].
6. Context, competing narratives and implicit agendas
Advocates and employee protesters have focused on moral and human‑rights implications of AWS’s role—as hosting provider for Palantir and for systems used in enforcement—while Amazon and other cloud vendors emphasize contractual distance, compliance frameworks and third‑party models; reporting reflects both angles but also highlights the incentives for governments to use commercial cloud infrastructure for scale and speed, and companies’ incentives to avoid reputational risk by describing arrangements as reseller or hosting relationships rather than prime enforcement contracts [10] [5] [8].