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Over the previous six months, per federal procurement information reviewed by The Lever, quite a lot of shadowy non-public safety and weapons companies have been tapped to offer firearms and fight coaching to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) snipers and particular response groups — a number of of which had by no means earlier than obtained any federal contracts.
Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed 37-year-old authorized observer Renee Good in Minnesota final week, was a 10-year veteran of an ICE particular response staff, the company’s equal of a SWAT staff. Good’s killing has sparked nationwide unrest and scrutiny of ICE’s more and more violent techniques.
The companies which have gained worthwhile contracts underneath the Trump administration to coach officers like Ross embody a Texas armed safety firm, a politically linked sniper agency in Florida, and a shadowy tactical coaching firm in Virginia. One, Goal Down Group, is owned by the brother of Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), as Wired reported in September.
These companies are among the many many non-public entities, alongside non-public jail firms and social media surveillance companies, lining up for his or her minimize of the Trump administration’s deportation spending blitz, which practically tripled ICE’s annual funds with the enactment of the GOP’s One Huge Stunning Invoice in July.
ICE’s workforce has ballooned by 120 p.c since President Donald Trump’s inauguration amid an unprecedented hiring frenzy. The company has slashed its coaching necessities and loosened hiring requirements to rent as many new recruits as potential.
The brand new contracts with little-known firms that promote coaching in “superior methods as soon as unique to navy safety items,” are one other window into the continued militarization of ICE, a subagency of the Division of Homeland Safety.
ICE has lengthy deployed tanks and specialised tactical items in the middle of immigration enforcement. However the company is now spending greater than ever earlier than on munitions and navy gear to outfit its officers. The results of this spending spree, within the view of many individuals who’ve taken to the streets in Minneapolis and across the nation, have been seen within the killing of Good and, a day later, the taking pictures of two individuals throughout a visitors cease by ICE.
A Bloomberg report final month discovered that ICE spent practically $140 million on weapons and ammunition within the closing weeks of the 2025 fiscal yr, shopping for from some distributors that had beforehand labored primarily with the Pentagon. (A single vendor, Lionheart Alliance, obtained a $49 million contract final month to offer tactical gear like ballistic helmets to ICE.)
Most new ICE recruits undergo a number of weeks of routine coaching on the Federal Legislation Enforcement Coaching Heart in Brunswick, Georgia. 5 hours away on the Fort Benning U.S. Military base, close to Columbus, ICE conducts extra specialised tactical coaching for its elite items. As ICE’s particular response groups have expanded, so has its programming on the navy base.
ICE additionally rents firing ranges across the nation for its brokers; ICE spends the second-highest amount of cash on gun-range contracts in Minnesota, behind Texas.
ICE’s coaching strategies at Fort Benning have come underneath scrutiny earlier than. In 2019, underneath the primary Trump administration, the company inked a contract with navy contractor Strategic Operations, Inc. to construct out its “tactical operations complicated” on the navy base, together with a “hyper sensible” duplicate of a house in Arizona and an house complicated in Chicago in an effort to prepare its brokers for supposed “city warfare.”
Strategic Operations, Inc. obtained a subsequent $975,000 contract from ICE in 2024 for an additional “modular coaching construction” at Fort Benning, procurement information present.
Already, since Sept. 1, 2025, ICE has spent practically $8 million on new gear — together with simulation rounds, junk automobiles, sniper coaching gear, and a mannequin constructing — for numerous coaching programs, together with for its tactical coaching at Fort Benning, per The Lever’s overview of contracting information.
To coach its sniper groups and particular response teams, ICE has additionally inked offers with navy contractors and obscure safety companies.
In July, ICE awarded a first-time, $23,000 contract to Reticence Group LLC, a Texas-based armed safety agency, for “specialised regulation enforcement pistol and rifle” coaching. The corporate, led by two SWAT officers in Texas, advertises that it presents “covert and confidential armed safety contractors” for the non-public sector, in addition to “firearms coaching that pushes limits.”
One other sole supply contract in July for $35,000 was awarded to Path Consulting LLC, a Virginia Seashore-based agency that, in keeping with a contract discover, offers “[close-quarter combat] dwell hearth coaching” and would assist an ICE particular response staff “develop new normal working procedures.”
Though the contract discover indicated that Path Consulting LLC had labored with ICE previously, no different on-line procurement information point out its identify. A name to a cellphone quantity linked to the corporate went unanswered.
In September, ICE issued a no-bid contract to Goal Down Group, an organization owned by Dan LaLota, the brother of Nick LaLota, who has served because the Republican U.S. Consultant for New York’s 1st congressional district since 2023. (Dan LaLota denied his brother had any function within the award when requested by Wired in September.) Most of Goal Down Group’s management are veterans of the U.S. particular forces; the corporate’s president, Dan LaLota, is a former U.S. Marine.
The corporate’s web site advertises “elite firearms instruction,” drawing from “years of expertise as veterans from U.S. Army Particular Operations.” Within the Division of Homeland Safety’s September justification for the no-bid contract, officers wrote that ICE had an “instant requirement to obtain precision fires and specialised remark capabilities for the nationwide Particular Response Crew (SRT) sniper program.”
“The regulation enforcement officers of ICE have a really difficult job to conduct,” LaLota wrote in response to The Lever’s request for remark. “Goal Down Group is honored to have offered coaching to them in an effort to help them [sic] carry out their duties.”
The opposite ICE coaching contractors talked about on this story didn’t reply to inquiries, nor did ICE.
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