ICE says it has made tentative job offers to more than 1,000 as hiring ramps up

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer listens during a briefing, Jan. 27, 2025, in Silver Spring, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON — The agency responsible for carrying out U.S. President Donald Trump’s mass deportations agenda says it has already made tentative job offers to more than 1,000 people as it ramps up hiring following the passage of legislation earlier this month giving the agency a massive infusion of cash.

The agency’s spokeswoman, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement Thursday that the offers had been made after July 4. That’s when Trump signed into law a broad package of tax breaks and spending cuts that also included about US$170 billion for border security and immigration enforcement, spread out over five years.

“ICE has already issued over 1,000 tentative job offers since July 4. Many of these offers were to ICE officers who retired under President Biden because they were frustrated that they were not allowed to do their jobs,” she said. “Now under President Trump and Secretary Noem, ICE is excited to get back to work to remove rapists, murderers, gang members and pedophiles from our communities.”

The budget is multiplying exponentially

ICE is the key agency responsible for executing Trump’s campaign promise of carrying out the largest deportation operation in history. The administration has been ramping up immigration-related arrests across the country. Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, has said ICE officers would have a target of at least 3,000 arrests a day, up from about 650 a day during the first five months of Trump’s second term.

That heightened enforcement has played out with arrests in immigration courts, worksites, neighborhoods and more.

ICE is set to get US$76.5 billion, nearly 10 times its current annual budget. Some US$45 billion will go toward increasing detention capacity. Nearly US$30 billion is for hiring 10,000 more staff so the agency can meet its goal of one million annual deportations. The White House has said ICE will grow from 20,000 employees to about 30,000.

Earlier this week, ICE announced a recruiting campaign aimed at finding and hiring the deportation officers, investigators and lawyers it will need to meet that goal of 10,000 new staff. As part of that campaign the agency is offering an eye-catching bonus of up to US$50,000 for new recruits as well as other benefits like student loan forgiveness and abundant overtime for deportation officers.

At a time when the federal government has been firing federal employees left and right, the USAJOBS website where vacancies for federal jobs are posted has dozens of Immigration and Customs Enforcement jobs.

Some are for the deportation officers responsible for finding and removing people from the country; investigators with Homeland Security Investigations, which helps investigate transnational crime, including immigration issues; and lawyers who represent the government in prosecuting immigration cases.

Jobs to support the detention network are also in play

But there are also other jobs that support the detention network that is being supercharged to carry out mass deportations: nurses and nurse managers, psychiatric care providers, auditors, field medical coordinators and more.

The anticipated hiring boom has also raised concerns about whether standards will be lowered in order to meet the growing demand. The U.S. Border Patrol underwent its own expansion during the early 2000s — something that is often cited as a cautionary tale for the risks of quick hiring. To meet hiring goals, training and hiring standards were changed. Arrests for employee misconduct rose.

McLaughlin rejected suggestions that the agency would lower recruitment standards.

“All new recruits must meet the same standards they always have. I know this may be shocking to the media, but many Americans want to serve their country and help remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country,” she said.

Rebecca Santana, The Associated Press