A US-based global investment firm. Its subsidiary ManTech International provides IT and surveillance services to US immigration authorities.
The Carlyle Group Inc., headquartered in New York, is a global investment firm that operates in the private equity, credit, and investment solutions sectors.
In September 2022, the Carlyle Group acquired ManTech International Corporation, a military contractor that specializes in information technology (IT), artificial intelligence (AI) for federal agencies, cybersecurity, data analytics, military logistics, and management services. The company also provided financing to private equity firm Point Lookout Capital Partners for its 2005 acquisition of Combined Systems Inc, a manufacturer of “less-lethal” weapons under the brand Combined Tactical Systems (CTS).
ManTech International Corporation, headquartered in Fairfax, Va., primarily contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), which, as of July 2024, has awarded the company over $14.4 billion in contracts. ManTech is the 42nd-largest military contractor as of 2023 and has reportedly “boast[ed] strong relationships with intelligence agencies, cultivated over five decades.”
ManTech provides various IT and surveillance services to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and, in May 2024, boasted that its AI technology is being utilized by U.S. immigration authorities. Listed as a “prime contractor” of the DHS, ManTech held over $727.9 million worth of contracts with U.S. immigration authorities Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) between 2003 and July 2024. In 2021, for example, CBP awarded the company a contract worth a potential $272.5 million to enhance its Targeting and Analysis Systems Program Directorate (TASPD), potentially through September 2026. TASPD is responsible for targeting and screening passengers and vehicles crossing the U.S.–Mexico border and sharing those passengers' information with other countries via the Global Travel Assessment System. TASPD also administers the Analytical Framework for Intelligence (AFI), a platform that targets "people of interest." This was a key tool for the Extreme Vetting Initiative, planned by the Trump administration in 2017 and abandoned a year later. Palantir Technologies also played a role in developing this data platform for CBP.
In addition to providing CBP with TASPD-related services, ManTech has provided IT services for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) complex, home to the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system, a biometric database that stores biometric data, including finger and palm prints, mugshot photos, and iris scans, from law enforcement agencies across the U.S. and shares it with CBP and ICE.
In 2009, ManTech was awarded a contract as part of CBP’s Secure Borders Initiative, for which Boeing was the prime contractor. CBP terminated this program in 2011 after making "key decisions…without rigorous review, analysis, or transparency.”