French tech and consulting multinational Capgemini said it is “immediately” selling its U.S. unit that works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after the French finance minister and lawmakers raised pointed concerns about a contract tied to surveillance and locating undocumented immigrants.
In a statement Sunday, Capgemini said the Paris-based parent company is moving to divest because it is unable to “exercise appropriate control” over the U.S. subsidiary in order to “ensure alignment with the Group’s objectives.”
The controversy centers on Capgemini’s U.S. subsidiary, Capgemini Government Solutions, and its role in a new ICE program designed to track 1.5 million undocumented immigrants through paid contractors using a mix of remote technologies and on-the-ground surveillance, with financial incentives tied to how quickly individuals are located. CGS was positioned to be the lead contractor for the “skip-tracing” program, after securing a contract with a ceiling of $365 million over two years— the highest among 14 selected contractors.
French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told lawmakers last week that he was pressing Capgemini to address the contract with “complete transparency” and to reexamine its nature. Capgemini said two days later that the contract was not currently being executed.
Public criticism from companies tied to ICE has been unusual amid the Trump administration’s deportation surge. But after two American protesters were killed in Minneapolis, several international firms have said in recent days that they are reassessing their business relationships.
The Jim Pattison Group, a Canadian real estate company, said Friday that a transaction to sell an industrial building in Ashland, Virginia, to ICE “will not be proceeding,” following backlash from Canadian politicians, including calls from the British Columbia Green Party for a boycott of the firm.
British Columbia’s attorney general, Niki Sharma, said at a Tuesday news conference that “we watch in horror” the events in Minneapolis, according to Global News. She urged Canadian business executives “to think about their role in what is unfolding there.”
In Vancouver, hundreds of protesters gathered Friday outside the headquarters of another Canadian firm, social media management company Hootsuite, which has a contract with ICE’s public affairs office. “We said Canadians won’t tolerate far-right authoritarianism and anyone who supports it,” Democracy Rising, the group that organized the protest, wrote in a Threads post.
Hootsuite CEO Irina Novoselsky issued a public letter earlier last week calling ICE’s recent activities “wrong” and describing the loss of life as “devastating,” while defending the company’s decision to continue its contract. She said Hootsuite provides social media support— not tracking or surveillance tools— to ICE.
“We work with a wide range of organizations because listening to real conversations leads to insights that drive better decisions and accountability, without endorsing specific actions or policies,” she wrote.
ICE, Capgemini, and the Jim Pattison Group did not immediately respond Monday to requests for comment. Hootsuite said in a statement that it “respects everyone’s right to express their views peacefully and safely.”
Capgemini CEO Aiman Ezzat said in a LinkedIn post on Jan. 25 that independent directors at CGS were reviewing the skip-tracing contract, and that the French parent company had only recently learned certain details about the ICE program due to fire walls around the unit designed to protect classified work for the U.S. government.
“The nature and scope of this work has raised questions compared to what we typically do as a business and technology firm,” Ezzat wrote.
