This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 6 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
Before Wednesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement was only allowed to hire agents under the age of 40. However, Donald Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has now scrapped that rule, announcing on Fox News that the agency has removed age barriers and will “no longer have a cap on how old you can be” to join.
As ICE attempts to increase its recruitment numbers, 404 Media reports it is also ramping up its effort to bring in young people. The agency is reportedly looking for a digital advertising company to “dominate” digital media channels, targeting Gen Z via ads on social media and streaming services like Hulu and HBO Max. They want old people, young people — they want anyone they can get, it seems.
We have already seen ICE flood social media with recruitment ads. “America needs you, join ICE now,” reads a poster featuring Uncle Sam donning the agency’s hat. “Want to deport illegals with your absolute boys?” asks another ad. “Serve your country! Defend your culture! No undergraduate degree required!” the Department of Homeland Security posted on X, alongside a link to join ICE. (The phrase “your culture” is doing a lot of offensive work there.)
The agency has even sent targeted emails to hundreds of local police officers and sheriff’s deputies across the country trying to poach them, a move that’s angering local law enforcement leaders in the process. As one Florida police chief put it to NBC News, “Everybody’s so pissed.”
The reality is that local law enforcement salaries can’t compete with the federal government. Thanks to the more than $29 billion in funding for hiring and training from Trump’s spending bill, ICE is now offering up to $50,000 in a signing bonus for new recruits and up to $60,000 in student debt repayment.
You could be 18 or you could be 75. You can hang out with “your absolute boys” and “defend your culture,” and they’ll give you a big fat bonus and pay off your student loans. That is how ICE is hiring right now to reach its goal of 10,000 more agents to supersize Trump’s immigration crackdown.
While Trump is supersizing the part of our immigration system that arrests people, he is shrinking the part of the system that gives those same people due process. As he is hiring ICE agents by the thousand, he is firing immigration judges by the dozen.
Since Trump took office in January, his administration has fired immigration judges without cause or reason. The immigration courts now have only about 600 immigration judges nationwide to handle a backlog of about 3.5 million cases.
That means that while the Trump administration is trying to arrest, imprison and deport an unprecedented number of immigrants, there will be fewer and fewer immigration judges to hear their cases and decide whether their arrests were lawful.
Some of those fired judges are starting to speak out. George Pappas, Jennifer Peyton and Carla Espinoza were all abruptly terminated by the Trump administration via email in July.
While Trump is supersizing the part of our immigration system that arrests people, he is shrinking the part of the system that gives those same people due process.
In an interview with CBS News, Peyton said the shift in the administration’s focus to enforcement puts the “future of our country” at stake. “If the funding is going to enforcement and there is no justice left, that shows that our country is no longer embracing the need for due process and for justice,” she said.
“If you are attacking the very judges that adjudicate cases, there’s not gonna be a rule of law,” Pappas added. “That should concern everybody. Not just immigrants, but U.S. citizens.”
Espinoza agreed, issuing a stark warning to all Americans: “Today is them — is immigrants. What about tomorrow? Who is going to get due process denied next?”
