New York Times Discloses McKinsey's $20 Million ICE Contract: Employee Outrage and Internal Crisis

The New York Times discloses that McKinsey & Company has done more than $20 million in consulting work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, triggering immediate outrage among McKinsey employees and alumni. The revelation comes on the same day that ICE announces an end to its ‘zero tolerance’ policy that separated asylum-seeking children from their parents at the U.S. border—making the timing particularly inflammatory.

McKinsey employees first learn about the firm’s extensive ICE work from the Times story, not from internal communications. The contract ‘was not widely known within the company until The New York Times reported it,’ according to reporting. The news causes ‘a bit of drama’ and ‘a lot of discussions and alumni reactions,’ as both current employees and former partners weigh in about the moral consequences of playing a role in ICE’s work during the family separation crisis.

The disclosure actually appears in a Times article primarily about McKinsey’s corruption scandal in South Africa involving former president Jacob Zuma, making the ICE revelation even more jarring—a consulting firm simultaneously embroiled in foreign corruption and domestic immigration enforcement scandals. The juxtaposition highlights McKinsey’s pattern of controversial government work across multiple continents.

Federal records show that ICE modified the McKinsey contract three days after the Times story publishes, suggesting the public disclosure immediately impacts the consulting arrangement. The revelation puts pressure on McKinsey’s new global managing partner Kevin Sneader, who began his three-year term just four weeks earlier on July 1, 2018, to respond to employees’ ethical concerns about the firm’s role in Trump’s immigration crackdown.