The increasingly militarized Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on a recruiting spree that includes bonuses of up to $50,000.
The agency this week publicly launched its recruitment plan, and is specifically targeting former government lawyers, according to an email received by a former Department of Justice employee and reviewed by NOTUS.
“We are issuing an urgent call to former federal Attorneys to join OPERATION RETURN TO MISSION (“RTM”),” the email reads. “We are significantly growing our ICE team — starting with bringing back our retired colleagues. RTM is being offered to retired employees who departed federal service in good standing.”
ICE got a huge funding boost from Congress this month, securing $170 billion through President Donald Trump’s budget law, which it is now using to pay for this recruitment campaign
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“Backed by significant new funding through the recently signed One Big Beautiful Bill, ICE is rolling out patriotic recruitment posters and benefits,” the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.
The department, which oversees ICE, has pulled staff from all over the federal government to support Trump’s mass deportation agenda, including from the FBI and IRS. Agencies have reportedly felt strained between the administration’s immigration demands and its efforts to radically reduce the size of the federal workforce.
The Department of Justice, for example, has atrophied significantly since Trump took office, with longtime workers leaving the agency and hundreds reportedly fired amidst sweeping, controversial and legally contested staff reductions.
Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, told Fox Business that he intends to triple the ICE workforce quickly.
“We’re not having trouble recruiting,” Homan told Fox of the money ICE is now offering new employees, arguing that the bonuses are to ensure the agency can hire more people quickly. “We have to bring 10,000 on quickly … offering incentives to bring people to the table quicker, we are going to get them through the process quicker,” Homan said.
ICE is offering former employees signing bonuses — higher if prospective ICE employees apply within a week — and a special “dual compensation waiver” to allow them to collect both federal pension funds and a new ICE salary.
ICE is also offering higher than industry average bonuses to the general public, as well as student loan repayment and forgiveness plans. Trump previously called Biden’s student loan forgiveness plans “unfair to all of those people, one of the reasons, all of the people for years and years who paid back their loans.”
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