# MVM Inc. Ashburn, Virginia security contractor founded in 1979 by three former Secret Service agents (Dario Marquez Jr. bought out his partners; son Kevin Marquez purchased the company in 2015). MVM is the mass-deportation machine's transport layer: over a decade as a primary [[ICE]] detainee-transport provider, with ~$1.1B in cumulative ICE obligations and $145M in new 2025 contracts — plus the work that makes it notorious, moving unaccompanied minors. ## The children business During the 2018 family-separation era, MVM held children — some taken from their parents — in a vacant Phoenix office building without a kitchen, adequate toilets, or child-care licensing, past its own 24-hour contractual limit. In *Padre et al. v. MVM, Inc.* (filed 2024), a father and son separated for six years allege child abduction, torture, and enforced disappearance; in March 2025 a federal judge denied MVM's motion to dismiss, finding its conduct fit the definition of enforced disappearance. In April 2026, ICE nonetheless awarded MVM a one-year contract to locate unaccompanied children previously released from custody ("safety and wellness checks" — the dollar value is redacted in public documents); child-welfare advocates say the checks have terrorized children and driven new separations. OpenSecrets grouped the Marquez family among Trump donors profiting from ICE contracts, though at least one review found no MVM contributions meeting standard donor-database thresholds — the donor label is contested. ## See Also - [[Carceral and Border Security Sector]] · [[ICE]] - [[GlobalX]] — the air-transport counterpart - [[US Immigration Timeline]]