A US-based specialty insurance company that previously underwrote immigration bonds for bail bond firm Libre by Nexus.
RLI Corp., headquartered in Peoria, Ilinois, is a specialty insurance company that underwrites property, casualty, and surety bonds. As of 2022, the company operated in all 50 U.S. states and generated $1.7 billion in annual revenue.
RLI's principal insurance subsidiary, RLI Insurance Company, underwrote immigration bonds for Libre by Nexus—a subsidiary of private e-carceration company Nexus Services—until 2020. Libre by Nexus, a self-proclaimed "legal aid" provider, profits from collecting monthly and other fees in exchange for securing immigration bonds for individuals detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The company, which has been sued and investigated numerous times for "preying on undocumented immigrants" and "acting as an unlicensed bail bond agency," reported in September 2020 that RLI was no longer one of its vendors.
RLI faced numerous complaints and lawsuits alleging that its "mean-spirited, profit-driven" business practices placed immigrants at risk of bodily harm, rearrest and deportation. For example, an August 2020 class action lawsuit alleged that the company prematurely terminated 2,421 immigration bonds pending review by the U.S. government to determine whether such bonds had been breached. By terminating these bonds prior to the government's review, the lawsuit alleged, RLI placed thousands of immigrants at risk of "immediate arrest and deportation." That same year, the company was accused at placing thousands of immigrants' lives at risk by publicly releasing their personal information, including their usernames and passwords used to access Libre by Nexus databases.
As of 2023, RLI underwrites "court bonds." Investigate has found no evidence that these court bonds include bail bonds for the criminal punishment system.