An Irish multinational professional services firm that provides technical and planning support to CBP and ICE.
Accenture PLC, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a multinational professional services firm that specializes in information technology (IT) services and consulting.
Accenture has been a main contractor of U.S. immigration authority Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and was one of 14 “giants in the border security business” from 2006 to 2018. Between 2005 and August 2024, the company held contracts worth at least $608.7 million with CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for data center support services, “cyber defense and intelligence support,” communications and consulting services, and more.
Accenture supports CBP’s surveillance of immigrants by providing the agency with IT support and biometrics services. In 2023, CBP awarded the company a contract worth a potential $379.9 million for supporting its data centers and modernizing its IT infrastructure. According to Accenture, the contract, which stems from a nearly two-decades-long relationship with CBP, “will deliver comprehensive technology support across multiple programs within the agency responsible for safeguarding [the U.S.’s] borders and facilitating lawful international travel and trade.” This contract has a potential end date of January 2028.
Accenture also provides ICE with cyber defense, intelligence, and biometrics services. In 2021, for example, ICE awarded the company a $57.7 million contract for cyber defense and intelligence support. This contract has a potential end date of August 2026.
Until at least March 2023, Accenture provided Salesforce licenses to CBP and ICE for use on multiple systems. Salesforce’s work for CBP has attracted criticism from its own employees and civil society groups.
Between 2017 and 2023, Accenture provided CBP with data center support services, to support CBP’s IT modernization efforts at three CBP data centers located in Virginia and Mississippi. This $370.3 million contract was part of a larger DHS project, which began in 2008, to consolidate the functions of its 43 agency-specific data centers across the U.S. into two primary centers in Mississippi and Virginia and migrate its IT systems to the cloud. It included Accenture’s support for Amazon’s AWS, Google’s Cloud Platform, and Microsoft’s Azure.
In the past, Accenture conducted hiring for CBP. In 2017, the company was awarded a $297 million contract for recruiting 5,000 new Border Patrol Agents. Ten months into the contract, CBP had paid Accenture approximately $13.6 million for startup costs, recruiting, security requirements, and applicant support, and the company had processed only two accepted job offers. In 2019, CBP canceled the contract.