Immigration Policy Brief #190 | Morgan Davidson | July 24, 2025
If you have been following the news surrounding Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” one of the provisions you would see is the $170 billion for immigration enforcement & border security. Of this $170 billion, approximately $75 billion represents an increase in funding to ICE, making it the highest-funded law enforcement branch of the federal government. The funding for ICE is intended to build more detention centers, aid in retention through bonuses, & expand the total number of personnel.
This brief focuses on the latter part of that equation: the increase in ICE agents. With the money allocated & goals advanced by the President, ICE is expected to recruit 10,000 new agents in addition to the roughly 6,000 current deportation officers. Specifically, this brief addresses where these people will come from, how they will be trained, how they will be used, how they will be held accountable, & what, if any, need there is for an additional influx of ICE agents.
Analysis
Where will the recruits come from? The answer to this is multifaceted. ICE will target new recruits, both male & female, & seek to entice recent retirees back into the field with signing bonuses for both. This approach allows the agency, which started up in 2003 after the Homeland Security Act following 9/11, to return former employees & pick up fresh faces, but meeting the 10,000 new personnel goal will be challenging. ICE agents must be at least 21 & no older than 37 when they apply. Further, ICE agents can retire at any age with 25 years of service or at age 50 with at least 20 years of service.
Below is a sample job description with experience requirements for the lowest level deportation officers obtained from USA JOBS.
“As a Deportation Officer at the Entry Level you will work with more experienced officers to provide support and perform the following segments of work related to immigration investigation, custody, identification and location, arrest, prosecution and deportation:
- Assist with the apprehension of individuals that are accused of violating immigration or related laws;
- Assist with preparing investigative reports in sufficient detail and accuracy to support possible prosecution and/or administrative action;
- Perform law enforcement support duties such as taking fingerprints and photographs;
- Conduct routine interviews using various law enforcement methods and techniques (e.g., observation, interviews, document inspection, data analysis, etc.) to respond to a variety of immigration inquiries and complaints; and
- Document, transport, deport, and/or escort criminal and non-criminal migrants under the guidance of a more senior officer.
- Initiate both criminal and civil prosecutions and deport migrants to foreign countries as well as perform various aspects of custodial operations related to civil immigration enforcement.
Experience: Three (3) years of progressively responsible experience, one year of which was equivalent to the GS-4 level or above in the Federal government. The experience must demonstrate: the ability to analyze problems to identify significant factors, gather pertinent data, and recognize solutions; plan and organize work; communicate effectively orally and in writing; and deal effectively with others in person-to-person situations. OR-
Education: Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in any field leading to a Bachelor’s degree. This education must have been obtained in an accredited college or university. One year of full-time undergraduate study is defined as 30 semester or 45 quarter hours; OR-
Combination of Education and Experience: Combinations of successfully completed post-high school education and experience may be used to meet total qualification requirements for GL-5 and will be computed by first determining the total qualifying experience as a percentage of the experience requirement; then determining education as a percentage of the education requirement; and then adding the two percentages. The total percentages must equal at least 100 percent.”
How will they be trained? Anyone who has started a new job or moved knows it takes time to get settled & up to speed in a new role & community. This transition is undoubtedly more pronounced when you need to pass firearms training, become familiar with the laws, pass physical tests, & become an officer of the law. Incoming ICE officers undergo rigorous training, including tactical, legal, & language courses that can take up to a year to complete. This training requires them to spend 20 weeks in Georgia before being assigned to a specific station. While this process sounds tedious, it is crucial that the enforcement agents are properly vetted & know what they are doing to avoid wrongful arrests, deportations, or deaths, as we have seen with the mass deportation efforts already & law enforcement historically.
It is important to note that between 2006 & 2009, ICE ramped up its hiring efforts & also lowered its hiring standards for two reasons. First, as discussed earlier in the context of retention, many current ICE employees will be reaching retirement age, either with 20 years of service at age 50 or with 25 years of experience, which will decrease the active number of ICE agents. Second, we will likely see the same process play out here, where the vetting & training process for recruits is reduced to some extent. This probable reduction in background checks & training for recruits will likely result in a similar increase in arrests for misconduct, as found by the Associated Press during the recruitment push with lower standards from 2006 to 2009. While ICE has yet to lower its hiring standards, the political pressure from the President & the challenges in hiring make the lowering of standards something to keep an eye out for & future problems that may cause.
How will they be used? The initial version of the increased funding specified that the new 10,000 employees would be utilized as deportation officers. The final Senate version retained the 10,000 number but expanded the scope of employment. We will focus on the deportation officers that the President initially wanted before branching out to other alternative avenues. According to ICE, a deportation officer is responsible for the “arrest, transportation, detention, case management and removal of undocumented aliens.” Primarily, these officers are used for arresting those here illegally & play a significant role in aiding the administration to meet their arrest & deportation quotas set out by the President. Detention & Deportation Officers play a similar role but also focus more on the research & legal side. They can arrest & transport detainees; however, they also do background research & make the case for deportation in court. Criminal Investigators also conduct research, but their focus is on organizations rather than individuals. Finally, Technical Enforcement Officers aid in the arrests of individuals, specializing in technology, surveillance, & interrogation. Trump’s insistence on the Deportation Officers, the most general of the four career paths, requiring less specific training, reveals that the focus is on a mass of officers to deport people rapidly, rather than recruiting more agents trained in specialized areas. Getting the right people matters less than getting the most people; the administration is focused on quantity over quality regarding arrests & deportations.
As noted above, ICE agents do have quotas of people to arrest. Starting in May of 2025, ICE sent out a quota of 3,000 arrests per day by agents. How does ICE target whom to go after and arrest? Initially, ICE began with known violent offenders & those who law enforcement had already encountered. As the quotas have been issued & increased, we have seen a decline in those with previous criminal records as ICE begins arresting people in mass. We know from the protests in L.A. that ICE agents have been patrolling areas frequented by immigrants, including areas like Home Depots, Lowe’s, & even court buildings where people go for their hearings & green cards. The administration has also resumed the arrests of people at their places of work, such as farms, hotels, construction sites & restaurants, after implementing a short pause due to concerns about how the mass deportation effort has impacted these sectors of the economy, which heavily rely on immigrant workers to fill these positions.
ICE is a national agency since it is part of the Federal government, but has a large regional footprint along border states in places like California, Texas, & Arizona. That said, ICE works across the country & will look to expand with the increased funding & future expansion. We see examples of this with “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida. Though Florida is not on the Mexican border, it is an allied red state & home to President Trump, making it a prime target for expansion given the political makeup of the state & loyalty to Trump.
ICE collaborates with Border Patrol but not with immigration judges. Both ICE and Border Patrol are components of the Department of Homeland Security. Border Patrol routinely transfers individuals it apprehends at the border to ICE for detention and potential deportation. Additionally, ICE and Border Patrol often operate jointly in certain areas and through task forces focused on transnational crime and immigration enforcement.
That said, while ICE personnel may appear in immigration court, often as witnesses or government attorneys representing DHS, they do not collaborate with immigration judges. ICE enforces immigration laws and conducts arrests, while immigration courts exist to provide individuals the opportunity to present their side of the story. Judges, who work for the Department of Justice, issue independent legal decisions based on the law and the evidence presented, separate from ICE or DHS influence.
How will they be held accountable? What accountability looks like will be handled by the courts & by us, the American people. From the top, Trump has repeatedly excused ICE’s wrongful detentions & deportations, ranging from sending people like Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador to challenging court orders rather than conforming. The Supreme Court so far has largely enabled the President & expanded executive power. Lower courts continue to challenge the unconstitutional aspects of Trump’s mass deportation agenda; however, they can only do so much & for so long. Outside of these avenues, accountability is largely up to the American people, who need to continue to voice their disapproval with Trump’s & ICE’s handling of the mass deportation. The people need to highlight cases where ICE oversteps & highlight stories about members of their communities who are swept up in these raids. The partnership between this administration, the makeup of Congress & the Supreme Court limits the checks coming from the executive, legislative, & judicial branches, leaving it up to the people to speak up & vote these enablers out of office.
Do we need these new ICE officers? Largely, the answer here is no. If you have read my pieces on immigration, then you know that I acknowledge that our immigration system is broken. That said, none of them have advocated for an increase in the number of ICE or Border Patrol agents. We need more judges in immigration courts to hear asylum claims & speed up the immigration process. The backlog is already egregious, & increasing arrests & deportations will only exacerbate this issue, leaving people awaiting their day in court stranded in places like Alligator Alcatraz & under less than ideal conditions. We need comprehensive immigration reform that allows people to flee violence to safety, allows workers to fill vital holes in the economy, & reunites people with their families. The administration’s approach terrorizes communities, tears apart families, & cuts people’s entitlements like social security.
Engagement Resources
- U.S. Government Accountability Office GAO: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, non-partisan agency that works for Congress. Its primary role is to investigate how the federal government spends taxpayer money and to provide Congress and federal agencies with objective, fact-based information to improve government operations and save money. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106233
- Bipartisan Policy Center’s Immigration Reform Proposals: Explore balanced approaches to immigration policy that prioritize security, economic growth, and humanitarian concerns. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/topics/immigration/
- ACLU Know Your Rights: The ACLU outlines the rights of Immigrants in the U.S. https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/immigrants-rights