Washington, DC – A new Washington Examiner report reveals that current officers and retired senior officials say morale inside ICE has plummeted under the Trump administration. They described a workforce stretched beyond its limits by arrest quotas, mandatory overtime, and undertrained recruits rushed into the field without completed background checks or security clearances.
The damning report from a reliably conservative news outlet comes two weeks after ICE agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine. Even officers who support the administration describe a broken chain of command that leaves agents without clear training or rules of engagement, adding to a growing wave of resistance to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s deportation machine that America’s Voice has tracked in communities across the country.
Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice, issued the following statement:
“ICE agents are feeling the heat and lashing out against Trump and Miller’s increasingly violent mass deportation scheme. The report from the Washington Examiner sounds the alarm on how chaotic and out of control it has become. Burnt-out officers, undertrained recruits, and no rules for traffic stops aren’t accidents. They’re what happens when Trump and Miller chase senseless arrest targets and refuse to slow down. It’s long past time for Congress to rein in this out-of-control agency and hold this administration accountable before more people pay the price.”
Key excerpts from the Washington Examiner:
“While the Department of Homeland Security and White House have focused on whether to continue traffic stops, the debate inside ICE’s ranks is instead focusing at times on whether the job is even worth doing. In a bizarre turn of events, officers who spoke with the Washington Examiner this week said morale is lower under President Donald Trump than it was during the Biden administration.
“Current ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers, as well as retired senior ICE officials still dialed into daily operations, said the White House’s approach to immigration enforcement may prove detrimental to its mass deportation operation because it puts new recruits on the street who, sources claimed, were not adequately trained. Sources additionally say that officers have burnt out while working overtime month after month — all on top of functioning in an already tense and dangerous environment, likening the situation to a powder keg ready to blow.
“One ICE officer hired prior to this administration said ‘mistakes are made because [officers are] overworked’ on top of ‘pressure’ from leadership ‘to get [new recruits] guns and badges quick.’
“‘We’re being pushed to a breaking point. I don’t know where it will go, but it’s nowhere good,’ another officer said.”
Read the full report from the Washington Examiner here.
Read America’s Voice’s fact sheet on local law enforcement standing up to Trump and Miller’s deportation machine here.
