What smaller vendors and subcontractors have received new business tied to expanded ICE detention operations since the 2025 bill?
Executive summary
The expansion of ICE detention capacity after the 2025 bill has funneled new business not only to major primes but also to a cohort of smaller contractors and subcontractors — many of them regional logistics, disaster-recovery, and facility-services firms that had little prior experience running large detention operations [1] [2]. Public reporting and contract databases point repeatedly to firms such as Acquisition Logistics LLC, Disaster Management Group, Lemoine Disaster Recovery, and a slate of regional suppliers and service vendors, though full subcontractor chains remain opaque in federal award summaries [1] [2] [3].
1. Acquisition Logistics LLC — a small prime landing outsized awards
A Henrico County–based small business, Acquisition Logistics LLC, was awarded the contract to establish and operate a 5,000-bed short-term detention facility at Fort Bliss — an award later reported with a cumulative face value near $1.24 billion after DOD corrections — and has been singled out by lawmakers because it had never previously managed a correctional facility or won federal awards at that scale, an example of a small firm elevated into a prime role by the expanded detention push [1] [4].
2. Disaster Management Group and Lemoine Disaster Recovery — disaster/build-out specialists as subcontractors
Reporting identifies Disaster Management Group as a subcontractor assisting on the Fort Bliss competition and names Lemoine Disaster Recovery LLC as a recipient of large awards to build emergency ICE detention facilities [1] [2]. These companies—positioned by local press and contract-tracking outlets as specialists in rapid facility conversion and disaster services—illustrate how the expansion strategy routes construction and retrofit work to regionally based firms with infrastructure expertise rather than traditional corrections operators [1] [2].
3. Regional suppliers and service vendors — food, laundry, lab, and transport contracts
Analyses of procurement data show a network of smaller or mid-sized vendors supplying detention-site essentials: companies providing laundry and dish detergents at Florence, AZ; laboratory services to detention centers (Labcorp noted as a larger player, but the procurement ecosystem includes smaller labs), and regional firms supplying communications, restraints, and “less-than-lethal” munitions or logistical gear (Fortune’s reporting on Ecolab and other suppliers; Facing South/Truthout breakdowns identify many state-based winners) [5] [2] [6].
4. Medical, monitoring, and aviation subcontractors — often invisible in prime-layer summaries
Contracting analyses and watchdog guidance caution that many smaller subcontractors appear under prime brokers or pooled vehicle awards, meaning firms providing ankle monitors, lab testing, medical care, and air-charter services (CSI Aviation and monitoring contractors like BI Incorporated are examples cited in procurement analyses) can receive ICE business without prominent naming on ICE-facing award summaries, complicating efforts to map who is newly benefiting since the 2025 bill [3] [7].
5. Palantir, Dell, and larger primes — catalysts that create downstream subcontracting
While headline awards went to large tech and defense-adjacent firms (Palantir’s ImmigrationOS contract and Dell Federal Systems’ software awards), those prime contracts functionally create downstream subcontracting opportunities for smaller systems integrators and IT services firms in ICE’s supplier base; ICE itself emphasizes use of DHS strategic sourcing vehicles and encourages subcontracting, which institutionalizes pathways for smaller vendors to win new work tied to the expansion [7] [5] [8].
6. What the record doesn’t yet show — transparency gaps and political scrutiny
Open-contract sources (USAspending, ICE FOIA pages) and watchdog reporting provide many signposts, but sub-tier subcontractor lists are frequently absent from public summaries, leaving significant gaps in tracing every small vendor now tied to expanded detention operations; this opacity has prompted congressional calls for GAO scrutiny, with Representative Jayapal explicitly flagging Acquisition Logistics’ lack of prior corrections experience as a concern [9] [10] [4]. Advocacy groups and local reporters emphasize that while some new small firms are winning building and services work, the full economic ecosystem — who profits and how contracts are parceled into subcontracts — remains incompletely documented in the public record [3] [2].
7. Stakes and agendas — why vendor lists matter
The push to rapidly scale bed capacity creates commercial incentives for a range of actors: small construction and disaster-recovery shops, regional suppliers, logistics companies claiming veteran- or minority-owned status, and specialty service firms that may never have before operated in corrections, and watchdogs warn that political and profit motives can shape procurement choices; simultaneously, government statements about strategic sourcing and industry days frame subcontracting as an opportunity for small businesses, an angle that benefits DOA/ICE procurement narratives even as critics call for tighter oversight [1] [8] [11].