Donald Trump’s initiative to expand the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) force has encountered an obstacle.
In recent months, ICE has been making headlines following Trump’s entrance into office earlier this year.
As the 2024 election approaches and during his tenure in the White House, the President has placed a strong focus on reducing immigration numbers in his second term. One strategy involves deploying ICE officers to achieve this goal.
ICE’s operations have sparked controversy, leading to numerous protests across the United States. On October 22, protesters in New York took to the streets, expressing opposition to a recent ICE raid in Chinatown concerning the alleged sale of ‘counterfeit goods’, as reported by The Guardian.
The BBC reports that ICE is aiming to recruit 10,000 new employees, effectively doubling its current workforce.
However, a report by The Atlantic indicates that they are having difficulty meeting this recruitment goal due to issues with potential recruits.
According to four officials who spoke to the outlet, over one-third of potential recruits have failed ICE’s personal fitness test, which requires 15 push-ups, 32 sit-ups, and running 1.5 miles in 14 minutes.
Although the requirements sound challenging, one career ICE official described them as ‘pathetic’, noting that in the past, only a couple of recruits out of a class of 40 would fail more stringent requirements.
This official further explained to the outlet that standards have already been reduced in order to increase the number of ICE officers, claiming the new requirements ‘should be the minimum for any officer’.
Nonetheless, this situation has left him and other officials concerned as they work towards achieving Trump’s goal in the New Year.
On October 5, an email from ICE headquarters to their top officers reportedly expressed frustration that ‘a considerable amount of athletically allergic candidates’ had attended the academy, and that these candidates ‘misrepresented’ their physical abilities on their applications.
The email subsequently instructed field office leaders to conduct preliminary fitness assessments with potential candidates before sending them to the academy.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, told The Atlantic that the one-third failure rate only applied to ‘a subset of candidates in initial basic academy classes’. She anticipated that experienced law enforcement officers, eligible for fast-tracking, would fill 85 percent of the required places at ICE.
While these officers will not need to undergo the rigorous fitness test, McLaughlin added that they will ‘remain subject to medical, fitness, and background requirements’.
The department has been allocated $165 billion as part of Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’, which includes extending significant tax cuts for higher earners, reducing taxes on tips and overtime, implementing mass deportation, cutting Medicaid and food stamps, slashing green energy funding, among other measures.
Some positions within the Department of Homeland Security are being directed towards ICE, with recruits receiving a $50,000 signing bonus and a $60,000 student loan debt relief.
Recruits will also benefit from a substantial overtime package, in addition to ‘enhanced retirement benefits’.
The Department of Homeland Security has been contacted for further comment.