Mastodawn

❝ICE officers are paid a bonus every time they detain someone.❞

Read that. Reread that. Internalize it. Map that back to every story you’ve heard of ICE agents going off the rails, every random kidnapping, every brutal and stupid ICE story.

❝“Individual ICE agents get money per head that they detain – the guards told me that.”❞

🧵

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/karen-newton-valid-visa-detained-ice

‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks

Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone’

The Guardian

Paul Cantrell Feb 22

You know the classic story of the foolish employer who paid software developers per bug fixed? If you haven’t, you can guess the outcome: program called off when one developer “fixed“ hundreds of bugs in a single day (that they’d intentionally introduced).

This is just like that, except not like it at all: the “fake bugs” — ICE agents abducting random people to make a buck — are the •intended• effect.

Paul Cantrell Feb 22

Here in Minneapolis it’s been widespread common knowledge that ICE agents are getting paid per head they bring in, no matter how incorrectly, no matter the actual immigration status of the person they kidnapped, no matter how carelessly or violently they do it.

It’s nice to see this confirmed in print.

Paul Cantrell Feb 22

Do spend a moment with my assertion that this is the intended effect. If it’s clear who the secret police are targeting, then it’s clear whether you are safe, whether you should be afraid. If the secret police are randomly targeting everyone, then •everyone• has to be afraid.

•That• is what an authoritarian regime wants. The systems that created ICE’s chaotic, violent behavior are not accidental.

Parsingphase Feb 22

@inthehands It’s likely a truism that if a police force can be transparent about who they’re targeting, they wouldn’t need to be *secret* police.

Clare Page Feb 22

@Lynn Regarding this boost, It's bad enough that those ICE agents are violently kidnapping anybody, let alone not caring if the victims are immigrants or not, and getting paid per head for the people they grab anyway! Not only is your president a criminal, but he's allowing agents to act like criminals themselves: what a mess, to put it politely!

Lynn I 🗽Feb 22

@frog67 Yes, the whole thing is a huge mess, but really, all this began the day he took office in 2017. This has been one event building on another, with a four-year pause for the Biden administration, in between.

Taran Rampersad Feb 22

@inthehands I really wish we stopped using the term 'heads'.

It depersonalizes humans. ICE is already doing that.

They are people.

Rafe Culpin Feb 22

@inthehands They probably also get a kickback from the private prison companies for each profit unit they hand over.

@inthehands And feral boars in Texas. Once there was a market for hunters, some ranchers started breeding them.

Mark Otway Feb 23

@inthehands
It's known as the Cobra Effect (which has a Wikipedia page).

a.k.a. low-profile Feb 22

@inthehands It's the wild, wild west and these goons are bounty hunters.

Paul Turnbull 🇨🇦Feb 22

@inthehands It brings new force to the idea of perverse incentives.

@inthehands
Siri, what is the definition of perverse incentives? ( #DomesticTerrorism )

Robin Barton Feb 22

@inthehands quotas are a wonderful thing for fascists

@inthehands @mastodonmigration even if not true, if the agents believe it, then it'll still have the some effects

ℒӱḏɩę 💾☮∞🎶♲☀🔋Feb 22

@inthehands ❝ICE officers are paid a bonus every time they kidnap someone.❞. fixed it

Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈Feb 22

@inthehands "Come Visit the US, we'll put a bounty on your head!" -US Board Of Tourism

Alexandre Morin Feb 22

@inthehands So a bounty on literally anyone in the USA. That would never cause any problems would it? Wow…

Weekend Editor Feb 22

The comparison to the Slave Patrols grows ever more apt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_patrol

Slave patrol - Wikipedia

seachanged Feb 22

780 men and boys, all of them Muslim, have been imprisoned over time at Guantánamo since January 2002.

86 percent were sold to the United States during a time when the U.S. military was offering large bounties for capture; commonly, $5,000 was offered per man.

@inthehands So they are bounty hunters. Fuckwads.

Killa Koala Feb 22

@inthehands
"Incentive structures work. So you have to be very careful of what you incent people to do, because various incentive structures create all sorts of consequences that you can't anticipate." — Steve Jobs

Except of course that in this case the consequences were obvious and easy to anticipate.

Mark Wyner Won’t Comply

Enforcement ≠ bounty hunter

Jeffandthekid Feb 22

@inthehands NEVER AGAIN, NEVER!

decapitae Feb 22

@inthehands GESTAPO, plain and simple

@inthehands #bountyhunters

Let me narrate you Cobra Effect:

The Problem: During the British Raj, the government was concerned about the high number of venomous cobras in Delhi.

The Incentive: To reduce the population, officials offered a cash reward for every dead cobra brought to them.

The Backfire: Entrepreneurial residents began breeding cobras specifically to kill them and claim the reward.

The Outcome: When authorities discovered the breeding scheme, they terminated the reward program. Consequently, the breeders released their worthless snakes into the city, increasing the total cobra population.

The "Cobra Effect" now represents any situation where an incentive designed to solve a problem actually makes it worse.

@inthehands Scalp Bounty