Each morning at the Gates of ICE, we witness the same pattern: compliant asylum seekers—those who have followed every rule, attended every check-in, and waited patiently for their hearings—are increasingly directed to private contractors, often without explanation. Firms like BI Incorporated, a subsidiary of GEO Group, act as “bounty hunters,” verifying addresses and locating immigrants to feed the deportation machinery (The Intercept, 2025). The apparatus of control—GPS ankle monitors and electronic tracking, cloaked in legality—is insidious. It is also profitable. Standing at the gates, we see families confronted by these invisible chains, a stark reminder that compliance does not protect, but can expose people to detention and surveillance.
A friend of mine, a retired pastor who houses asylum seekers, shared a harrowing example. One housemate, with a pending asylum application, received an ankle monitor referral. These devices—often called “grilletes,” or shackles in Spanish—effectively turned her home into a de facto ICE processing center. A week later, on an early weekend morning, ICE agents arrived. Before she could respond or assert her homeowner’s rights, one guest opened the door, and agents entered, taking the man under surveillance into custody while he was not fully dressed. When the pastor pleaded that he was still fighting for asylum, an agent coldly replied, “He can fight for his asylum while he’s detained.” The photo she shared captures the moment ICE agents left her property, her compliant friend already in custody.
This is not isolated. Austin Kocher reports that ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program now has over 180,000 people on electronic monitoring, with GPS ankle monitor use at record levels (Kocher, 2025). These grilletes are presented as alternatives to detention, but they are coercive and punitive, rewarding the private companies that manage them while penalizing those under surveillance. Compliance, once assumed to protect, now exposes people to more scrutiny, more intrusion, and more control.
Just a year into this administration, the promises of harsh enforcement are not only real—they are escalating. Yet standing at the gates of ICE, witnessing families confronted by constant surveillance, I also see possibilities for resistance. What will nonviolent resistance look like in 2026? How can Casa Alterna and our partners support immigrants not only through hospitality, but also through advocacy, resources, emotional support, and solidarity?
Some paths are clear: bearing witness at the gates, documenting ICE practices, providing resources, emotional support, and solidarity, amplifying immigrant voices, and challenging enforcement structures. Resistance in the age of GPS tracking and bounty-hunter contractors will require creativity, courage, and clarity about the stakes. Standing with immigrants has never been more urgent, nor has it demanded more prophetic imagination about confronting injustice without replicating its violence.
The challenge is clear: how to respond faithfully to a system that treats compliance as suspicion, profits from coercion, and enforces control as a commodity. Casa Alterna has always answered the call to love across borders. Now, as ankle monitors track every step and private contractors patrol our communities, the question remains: how will we act—fearlessly, creatively, and with unwavering love—for those whose freedom is under constant watch?
by Anton Flores-Maisonet
Citations:
- The Intercept. (2025, December 19). ICE hires private bounty hunters to track immigrants, using for-profit surveillance company owned by GEO Group. https://theintercept.com/2025/12/19/ice-bounty-hunters-location-surveillance-geo-group/
- Kocher, Austin. (2025, December 20). Record number: 68,442 immigrants will spend the holidays in ICE detention. Substack. https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/record-number-68442-immigrants-will
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