Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security handed out a massive aviation contract, potentially worth nearly $1 billion, to a relatively new company with no federal contracting experience, following an opaque and seemingly hurried process.
The deal has sparked criticism from a rival contractor in a scathing lawsuit, and records reveal the extensive involvement of a senior DHS official who formerly worked with the winning company’s CEO. The lawsuit alleges the contract was “unlawful, rushed, and noncompetitive.” As the Trump administration pours billions of dollars into DHS for its crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the contract adds to a growing number of deals that have raised questions about the integrity of DHS contracting.
The three-year deal to fly migrants back to their home countries went to Salus Worldwide Solutions, a company founded by a former State Department official named William Walters. Until early September, the DHS division overseeing the contract was run by Christopher Pratt, a former State Department colleague of Walters. The White House had nominated Pratt for a high-level position to serve as the State Department’s main liaison with the Pentagon, but pulled his nomination on September 29.
Internal DHS records show that Pratt was involved in the contract award to Salus. In April, before the contract was awarded, Pratt scheduled DHS offsite meetings at Salus’s office, and he personally congratulated Walters after his company won the contract.
The contract, worth up to $915 million, is for air operations to support the administration’s effort to persuade millions of undocumented immigrants to “self-deport,” a key plank in the Trump administration’s immigration policy. The White House calls the program “Project Homecoming.” Under it, immigrants who use a Customs and Border Protection app to self-deport are being offered a $1,000 “exit bonus” and free travel. This program is at least partially funded by money that Congress earmarked to provide foreign aid to help refugees, but which the Trump administration has repurposed for “self-deportations,” as Reuters previously reported.
