More than a dozen Canadian companies have done business with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the controversial agency known as ICE, a Star analysis of American government procurement databases has found.
Several have active contracts with ICE worth millions of dollars, including technology multinational Thomson Reuters, security company GardaWorld, and Ontario defence manufacturer Roshel.
Such contracts have become controversial as concerns mount that products or services sold to ICE could be used by the agency in activities that may violate human rights.
Some Canadian politicians and community groups are turning up the heat on these and other companies doing business with ICE amid growing backlash against the agency following two fatal shootings in Minnesota and multiple detention-centre deaths, including the death of a Canadian in Florida last June. Human rights watchdogs are urging these firms to sever ties with the agency.
“It raises really, really serious concerns that a company doing business with ICE is going to be enabling abuses, and is going to be conducting operations that facilitate those abuses continuing,” said Aidan Gilchrist-Blackwood, network coordinator of Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA).
Thomson Reuters Special Services LLC, a U.S. subsidiary of the Toronto-based content and technology company Thomson Reuters, holds a contract worth up to $22 million (U.S.) that began in May 2021 to provide ICE with access to a law enforcement investigative database subscription, including “license plate reader data.”
The company also has two contracts worth up to $4.6 million (U.S.) and $3.5 million (U.S.) that offer “risk mitigation support services” and “maritime analysis tool and subject matter expert support services” for ICE Homeland Security investigations.
Thomson Reuters did not respond to the Star’s request for comments.
It has been widely reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security also intends to buy a warehouse in Virginia from Vancouver-based Jim Pattison Developments to serve as an immigration and customs enforcement processing facility.
Emily Lowan, leader of the B.C. Green Party, said on social media that Pattison’s businesses should face a boycott over the proposed sale.
Jim Pattison Developments said in a statement to the Star that it does not comment on private transactions and only became aware of the “ultimate owner” of the building after the public sale to a U.S. government contractor.
“However, we understand that the conversation around immigration policy and enforcement is particularly heated, and has become much more so over the past few weeks,” the company said.
Another B.C. company, Hootsuite, has also come under fire recently for providing social media services to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. According to the U.S. federal procurement documents, Homeland Security has awarded a contract worth up to $2.8 million (U.S.) to a company in New York called Seneca Strategic Partners to provide “social media management platform Hootsuite and support services.”
Hootsuite’s CEO Irina Novoselsky said in a statement Wednesday that “what we are watching unfold right now is wrong.”
She said that the company’s work with ICE does not involve monitoring or tracking individuals, but rather assists the agency in analyzing online social sentiment.
GardaWorld Federal Services, the Virginia-based division of Montreal’s GardaWorld, has been shortlisted to bid on ICE contracts worth up to $138 million (U.S.). The company already holds an $8 million contract providing security and correctional staff at the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention facility.
GardaWorld did not respond to the Star’s request for comment before publication.
The Star also found that Ottawa‑based software company JSI supports ICE investigations involving court‑ordered wiretaps of electronic communications under a contract valued at up to about $23.4 million (U.S.), which began in May 2025.
“As a matter of policy, we do not comment on specific customer relationships, particularly those involving any government or law enforcement agencies,” JSI, which has been awarded contracts by ICE for over 20 years, said in a statement.
The technology firm said it operates with integrity and strictly follows all applicable legal, regulatory, and export control requirements.
Earlier this week, Ontario New Democrat Leader Marit Stiles condemned a contract between ICE and Brampton-based defence manufacturer Roshel for 20 Senator armoured personnel carriers, a deal worth $8 million (U.S.).
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Premier Doug Ford said he has no authority over an Ontario company selling armored vehicles to the ICE.
Roshel did not reply to the Star’s request for comment.
The U.S. procurement database also shows ICE has awarded a contract worth up to $77,000 (U.S.) to Ottawa-based security product company ICOR Technology Inc. to purchase a “mini-caliber tactical robot” for law enforcement. The company did not respond to the Star’s question about whether it will sever ties with the immigration agency.
Karen Hamilton, director of the human rights watchdog Above Ground, said Canadian companies should cease doing business with ICE, which she said has displayed “obvious signs of human rights abuses.”
“If you’re engaging with ICE in any way, profiting from ICE, you’re part of that ecosystem that ICE is operating in, in the support to that ecosystem,” said Hamilton.
Gilchrist-Blackwood of CNCA said there is currently no effective law addressing human rights abuses by Canadian companies abroad, and that some related lawsuits filed by foreign citizens can take years to work their way through the Canadian court system.
Human rights organizations in Canada have been pushing for years for the country to introduce a human rights and environmental due diligence law that would require companies to prevent human rights violations and environmental harms in their operations, even outside of Canada, Hamilton and Gilchrist-Blackwood told the Star.
Martin Petrin, the Jarislowsky Dimma Mooney Chair in Corporate Governance at York University, told the Star that Canadian companies could be liable for human rights abuses outside Canada, but it depends on their level of involvement in causing direct harm.
“If I were in the shoes of directors or top management in a Canadian company,” Petrin said, “I know we would have to very carefully consider what interests are at stake and whether we could be associated with the activities of ICE.”
