Your Office's Expense-Tracking Company Is Probably Working with ICE

SAP Concur is best known in offices throughout the U.S. for helping employees book business trips. VICE Media uses it, for one. Among the other institutions that do is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, otherwise known as ICE.

This year, the travel and expense management company made at least $1.13 million working with the law enforcement agency. The company, formerly Concur Technologies, has been providing ICE with travel management services since at least 2013, according to government spending tracker USAspending.gov. The government has set aside nearly $5.4 million to be put toward SAP Concur’s services between 2014 and 2023.

The company’s conduct and ethics website claims that it “conduct[s] business with the U.S. Federal Government in an ethical and compliant manner” and follows a standard in the public sector to “build bridges – not silos.”

VICE asked how SAP Concur’s work with ICE fits into the company’s self-described ethics. “We're unable to provide information about our customer engagements without prior approval,” a spokesperson for SAP Concur said in response.

When asked how one might obtain approval, the spokesperson replied: “We don’t have any additional information to provide at this time.”

ICE, which is responsible for enforcing federal immigration and customs laws, has faced increasing criticism from international groups in recent years for human rights abuses including siloing children as young as four months old from their parents at the border as part of the Trump administration’s family separation policy. Other abuses include holding people in facilities without adequate healthcare, hygienic products, or food.

As a result, activists, organizations, employees, artists, and private citizens have called on companies like Amazon, Deloitte, Wayfair, McKinsey and Company to end their work with the agency.