NATIONAL NEWS

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

Jul 31, 2025, 1:06 PM | Updated: 2:24 pm

Jose Zavala, an undocumented gardener who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Ju...

Jose Zavala, an undocumented gardener who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on June 18, while on a job in La Mirada, and was released from a processing facility in El Paso, Texas, after his wife paid a $5,000 bond, stands in an ankle monitor outside his home in Pomona, Calif., Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (Will Lester/The Orange County Register via AP)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(Will Lester/The Orange County Register via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The agency responsible for carrying out 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 $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 $76.5 billion, nearly 10 times its current annual budget. Some $45 billion will go toward increasing detention capacity. Nearly $30 billion is for hiring 10,000 more staff so the agency can meet its goal of 1 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 $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 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.

National News

Federal agents escort a man to a transport bus after he was detained following an appearance at imm...

Associated Press

Judge pauses Trump administration’s push to expand fast-track deportations

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge agreed on Friday to temporarily block the Trump administration’s efforts to expand fast-track deportations of immigrants who legally entered the U.S. under a process known as humanitarian parole — a ruling that could benefit hundreds of thousands of people. U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., ruled that […]

7 minutes ago

FILE - A sign outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention campus in Atlanta is seen as a...

Associated Press

AMA and other medical associations are kicked out of CDC vaccine workgroups

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials have told more than a half-dozen of the nation’s top medical organizations that they will no longer help establish vaccination recommendations. The government told the organizations on Thursday via email that their experts are being disinvited from the workgroups that have been the backbone of the Advisory Committee […]

11 minutes ago

Trixie Garcia, daughter of musician Jerry Garcia, speaks during a ceremony to unveil the naming of ...

Associated Press

Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia has childhood street named for him in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A few hundred people gathered Friday to name a tiny San Francisco street after legendary Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia on what would have been his 83rd birthday and as part of a citywide celebration to mark the band’s 60th anniversary. Harrington Street, which is one block long, will also be […]

28 minutes ago

FILE - Children play outside Royce Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles, campus in Los...

Associated Press

Trump administration freezes $339M in UCLA grants and accuses the school of rights violations

The Trump administration is freezing $339 million in research grants to the University of California, Los Angeles, accusing the school of civil rights violations related to antisemitism, affirmative action and women’s sports, according to a person familiar with the matter. The federal government has frozen or paused federal funding over similar allegations against private colleges […]

40 minutes ago

Associated Press

4 people killed in a shooting at a Montana bar

ANACONDA, Mont. (AP) — Four people are dead in a shooting at a Montana bar as a search continues for the suspect, authorities say. The suspect is believed to still be armed, the Montana Highway Patrol said in a statement. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. ANACONDA, Mont. (AP) — […]

55 minutes ago

Associated Press

Veteran federal judge T.S. Ellis III, who presided over trial of Trump aide Paul Manafort, has died

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Federal judge T.S. Ellis III, whose legal scholarship and commanding courtroom presence was evident in numerous high-profile trials, has died after a long illness. He was 85. Ellis oversaw the trials of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and former U.S. Rep. William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson as well as the […]

1 hour ago

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