French tech large Capgemini introduced on Sunday that it’ll instantly divest from its American subsidiary Capgemini Authorities Options, following mounting scrutiny over the firm’s ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Capgemini was designated as the lead contractor of a brand new ICE surveillance program for “skip-tracing” immigrants. Skip-tracing is a technique usually utilized by debt collectors to find individuals who are troublesome to discover, and it has not been utilized by ICE before.
As a part of the new program, ICE enlisted a handful of nongovernment entities to observe down 50,000 immigrants a month, first by figuring out the place they stay and work by way of “all expertise techniques accessible,” after which confirming by way of “bodily, in-person surveillance,” together with photographing, in accordance to the Washington Post. The company awarded contracts to ten firms in December. As a part of the contract, the firms might earn greater than $1 billion by the finish of subsequent 12 months, in accordance to The Intercept.
The very best potential bounty of $365 million over two years would go to Capgemini Authorities Options, European tech large Capgemini’s U.S. subsidiary. Capgemini Authorities Options has been working with the Division of Homeland Safety for greater than 15 years, in accordance to Capgemini CEO Aiman Ezzat.
As ICE escalates its violent immigration crackdown, protesters have began concentrating on firms that assist turbocharge these efforts. Anti-ICE protesters are organizing nationwide general strikes and boycotts, whereas hundreds of tech workers have signed a letter asking their firms to cancel all contracts with ICE. Even Italians have organized protests as ICE brokers descend upon Milan for the Winter Olympics. The French are no strangers to anti-ICE sentiment, too.
Following the deadly shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE brokers in Minneapolis final month, scrutiny of Capgemini’s work with the DHS mounted in France. Union staff and authorities officers, together with the French minister of the economic system Roland Lescure, demanded that the firm overview its contracts with the American authorities.
An impartial board of administrators started reviewing the contract final week, Ezzat mentioned.
“We have been not too long ago made conscious, by way of public sources, of the nature of a contract awarded to CGS by DHS’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement in December 2025. The character and scope of this work has raised questions in contrast to what we sometimes do as a enterprise and expertise agency,” the chief government mentioned in a LinkedIn submit final Sunday.
Every week later, the overview concluded that ” the customary authorized restrictions imposed for contracting with federal authorities entities finishing up categorised actions in the United States did not permit the Group to train applicable management over sure facets of the operations of this subsidiary to guarantee alignment with the Group’s aims,” Capgemini mentioned in a press release.
The divestment choice arrives amid a tense geopolitical state of affairs between France and the United States. There has been deep-seated resentment amongst Europeans of the Trump administration’s actions since taking workplace final 12 months. Early final 12 months, French residents organized boycotts of Tesla due to CEO Elon Musk’s shut ties to the administration, together with some manufacturers that are simply closely related to an American id, like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.
As Trump escalates his tariff threats on the bloc, French officers have aimed to restrict the use of some American expertise in authorities areas to ease the nation’s reliance on the U.S. They’ve additionally repeatedly and overtly requested the European Union to take a stronger stance in opposition to Trump’s tariff threats, together with by unleashing the Union’s “commerce bazooka” that might permit restrictions on digital providers firms like Meta and Google.
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