Even With Tons of Money, ICE Finds Obstacles in Hiring 10,000 New Agents

TIME

The new recruitment page on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s website shows a drawing of a white-bearded Uncle Sam pointing to the viewer. “America has been invaded by criminals and predators,” the page reads. “We need YOU to get them out.” The pitch emphasizes that a college degree isn’t needed, and says recruits could be offered up to a $50,000 signing bonus and $60,000 in student loan repayment.

Transcript

00:00Would you take a job with ICE for a $50,000 signing bonus?

00:03Turns out that for a lot of Americans, maybe the answer is no.

00:11Republicans in Congress just allocated $30 billion to ICE to hire 10,000 new officers so that it can ramp up its deportations.

00:19Here's the pitch from Uncle Sam on its new recruitment page.

00:23ICE says it received 80,000 applications in the first week,

00:27but there are signs that most of those people who applied are not the types of people that ICE is looking for.

00:33Within days, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem loosened the age requirements for the job.

00:38Then at the end of July, ICE sent an email to thousands of retired federal law enforcement agents under the subject line,

00:44Return to Mission.

00:46The email promised they could continue to receive their retirement payments even as they started taking a new paycheck from ICE.

00:51And so far, it seems like it's hard to hire people in the places that the Trump administration wants to make the most arrests in.

00:57Cities run by Democrats like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles.

01:01In those places, local police jobs pay better and it's harder to poach from the local police departments.

01:06Not to mention that many of ICE's harshest actions in the past few months,

01:10like showing up at courthouses and workplaces to arrest people, often while masked,

01:14has hurt the agency's reputation in those places and maybe people are less inclined to want to do that work.

01:19The bottom line is, ICE needs to hire more officers to reach the administration's goal of when Trump's first year back in office.

01:25But so far, the agency is not keeping pace with that ambition.

01:29Özell

01:40iz

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