French tech big Capgemini introduced on Sunday that it’s going to instantly divest from its American subsidiary Capgemini Authorities Options, following mounting scrutiny over the corporate’s ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Capgemini was designated because the lead contractor of a brand new ICE surveillance program for “skip-tracing” immigrants. Skip-tracing is a technique typically utilized by debt collectors to find people who find themselves troublesome to seek out, and it has not been utilized by ICE earlier than.
As a part of the brand new program, ICE enlisted a handful of nongovernment entities to trace down 50,000 immigrants a month, first by figuring out the place they reside and work by “all expertise methods accessible,” after which confirming by “bodily, in-person surveillance,” together with photographing, based on the Washington Put up. The company awarded contracts to 10 firms in December. As a part of the contract, the businesses might earn greater than $1 billion by the top of subsequent yr, based on The Intercept.
The very best potential bounty of $365 million over two years would go to Capgemini Authorities Options, European tech big Capgemini’s U.S. subsidiary. Capgemini Authorities Options has been working with the Division of Homeland Safety for greater than 15 years, based on 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 common strikes and boycotts, whereas tons of of tech staff 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 not any 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 financial system Roland Lescure, demanded that the corporate evaluate its contracts with the American authorities.
An unbiased board of administrators started reviewing the contract final week, Ezzat mentioned.
“We have been lately made conscious, by public sources, of the character 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 comparison with what we usually do as a enterprise and expertise agency,” the chief govt mentioned in a LinkedIn publish final Sunday.
Every week later, the evaluate concluded that ” the customary authorized restrictions imposed for contracting with federal authorities entities finishing up categorised actions in america didn’t enable the Group to train acceptable management over sure features of the operations of this subsidiary to make sure alignment with the Group’s targets,” Capgemini mentioned in a press launch.
The divestment choice arrives amid a tense geopolitical state of affairs between France and america. There was deep-seated resentment amongst Europeans of the Trump administration’s actions since taking workplace final yr. Early final yr, French residents organized boycotts of Tesla attributable to CEO Elon Musk’s shut ties to the administration, together with some manufacturers which can be 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 limit the usage 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 towards Trump’s tariff threats, together with by unleashing the Union’s “commerce bazooka” that might enable restrictions on digital companies firms like Meta and Google.
