McKinsey Ghostwrites Its Own $2.2 Million ICE Contract Extension: Consulting Firm Defines Its Own Scope of Work

McKinsey’s influence at ICE grows to such an extent that McKinsey staff ghostwrite a government contracting document that defines the consulting team’s own responsibilities and justifies the firm’s retention—a contract extension worth $2.2 million. When an ICE official discovers this arrangement and writes to a contracting officer in May 2017 asking ‘Can they do that?’, the response reveals how deeply ICE has come to rely on McKinsey’s assistance.

‘Well it obviously isn’t ideal to have a contractor tell us what we want to ask them to do,’ the contracting officer replies, acknowledging the impropriety. But the officer adds that unless someone from the government can articulate the agency’s objectives, ‘what other option is there?’ Despite recognizing the ethical problem, ICE extends the contract based on McKinsey’s self-authored justification.

This extraordinary breach of procurement norms illustrates a fundamental problem in government consulting: agencies become so dependent on outside consultants that they lose the institutional capacity to even define their own needs. McKinsey essentially writes its own job description, sets its own scope of work, and justifies its own retention—a textbook example of regulatory capture where the regulated entity controls the regulator.

The incident also demonstrates how McKinsey leverages initial contracts to create dependencies that lead to contract expansions. By positioning themselves as indispensable, consultants can effectively write their own tickets, defining ever-expanding scopes of work that increase billing while reducing government oversight. The ICE contracting officer’s resigned acceptance that the government has no alternative to letting McKinsey define McKinsey’s work reveals an agency that has ceded fundamental management capabilities to its consultant.