Which ICE contractors have the largest obligated amounts by state in FY2025–2026 according to USAspending.gov?
Executive summary
USAspending.gov is the authoritative source for federal obligations and can be used to identify which contractors receive ICE funds, but the specific, ready-made listing of "largest obligated ICE contractors by state for FY2025–2026" is not present in the reporting provided; manual filtering or the site’s query tools are required to produce that exact state-by-state ranking [1] [2]. Investigative outlets and watchdogs have used USAspending data to map and highlight major contractors nationally and in individual states, but the documents supplied here do not themselves publish a definitive state-by-state top-contractor table for FY2025–2026 [3] [4].
1. The question being asked and the data reality
The user requests a concrete ranking — "Which ICE contractors have the largest obligated amounts by state in FY2025–2026 according to USAspending.gov" — which presumes a single, compiled dataset already exists in the public reporting; the sources provided confirm USAspending is the official open-data repository for obligations [1] [2] but do not include a pre-made state-by-state list of top ICE contractors for FY2025–2026 within these excerpts, so that specific output cannot be quoted verbatim from the supplied reporting [1] [2].
2. What USAspending provides and how to extract the answer
USAspending publishes contract and obligation records and offers filtering by agency, fiscal year, and recipient, which allows a user to build a state-level ranking by filtering obligations to ICE for FY2025–2026 and grouping results by recipient and by recipient state — the platform is the correct primary source to produce the requested list but doing so requires running those filters and aggregations on USAspending itself or exporting the raw data for analysis [1] [2].
3. What independent reporting has already surfaced nationally
Investigative outlets have used USAspending snapshots to name large ICE vendors: Sludge built an interactive map from USAspending data showing companies with new or expanded ICE obligations during the current administration period, illustrating that national contractors can be identified from USAspending extracts though a state-by-state top-ten table is not reproduced in the Sludge piece [3]. Fortune identified several high-dollar ICE contractors in 2025 — for example CACI International was reported as holding ICE IT/tactical communications awards worth roughly $119.9 million (with possible increases) per USAspending records cited by Fortune, demonstrating how outlet-level reporting highlights big recipients but focuses on national contract values rather than a state-by-state ranking [5].
4. What state-level reporting looks like (example: California)
State-focused investigations demonstrate the feasible approach: a law firm’s compilation of California companies doing business with ICE used USAspending filters to enumerate contracts supporting detention transport, surveillance, health services, and other categories active through FY2025–2026, proving that state-by-state lists are attainable but must be assembled from USAspending exports or filtered queries rather than quoted from a consolidated federal summary in the provided materials [4].
5. Limitations, alternate viewpoints and next steps to get the precise rankings
The supplied sources confirm where the authoritative data lives and show examples of how journalists and researchers derive contractor lists, but they do not themselves publish the specific state-by-state "largest obligated" contractor rankings for FY2025–2026 — that absence is a factual limitation of the supplied reporting [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. For a definitive answer, the recommended next step is to run USAspending queries filtered to the awarding agency (ICE), fiscal years 2025–2026, and to aggregate obligations by recipient name and recipient state (or by place of performance), exporting results to compute the largest obligated contractor per state; independent reporting (Sludge, Fortune, state-level compilations) offers examples and cross-checks once that raw aggregation is produced [3] [5] [4]. Also consider checking ICE’s contracts FOIA category and GAO/CRS budget analyses for context on funding increases and execution challenges that can affect obligation timing and reporting [6] [7] [8].