Meet the people signing up for Trump’s ICE
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 September 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
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Summary
In Arlington, Texas, thousands waited in line at a career fair in the hopes of getting hired as an ICE officer. Criminal justice reporter Robert Klemko was there and met a diverse mix of people – a former MMA fighter, a community college student and a former Marine.
President Donald Trump has pushed to deport a million people during the first year of his second term. To do this big immigration crackdown, ICE is expanding its recruiting efforts and incentivizing people to join through large signing bonuses and a pitch to “defend the homeland.”
Host Elahe Izadi speaks with Robert about what he heard from those who signed up and what the potential risks of ramping up hiring and training efforts.
Today’s show was produced by Sabby Robinson. It was edited by Reena Flores and mixed by Sam Bair.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A few weeks ago, I went to Arlington, Texas, to this video game competition arena. |
| 0:07.3 | It was about the size of a small college basketball arena. |
| 0:11.9 | But instead of video games, there was an ICE recruiting fair there. |
| 0:16.2 | That's Robert Klemko, criminal justice reporter for the Post. |
| 0:20.1 | He showed up at this expo center because the |
| 0:22.5 | Department of Homeland Security is doing a huge hiring push. They're hoping to recruit more officers for ICE, |
| 0:30.0 | U.S. immigration and customs enforcement. ICE wants to hire 10,000 new officers this year. |
| 0:39.9 | President Donald Trump is relying on ICE for his big immigration crackdown, and the organization's |
| 0:46.3 | mission is a broad one. Some agents conduct global crime investigations into things like |
| 0:52.0 | drug smuggling or human trafficking. |
| 1:00.6 | But many of the officers ICE is looking to hire will be tasked with arresting, detaining, |
| 1:04.4 | and removing unauthorized immigrants throughout the U.S. |
| 1:10.5 | To get its numbers up, ICE has promised some hires a signing bonus of up to $50,000. |
| 1:14.5 | That's on top of salaries that could be in the six figures. |
| 1:17.6 | This approach is divisive. |
| 1:21.4 | Robert was seeing some of that when he showed up the arena. |
| 1:26.9 | As soon as you pull into the parking lot, there's a group of about a dozen protesters out there, |
| 1:32.3 | accusing the applicants to ICE of being Nazis and signing up for the Gestapo. You get a job as a Nazi for the Gestapo? |
| 1:36.3 | But inside, Robert found thousands of people eager to join the cause. |
| 1:42.3 | You're seeing the new ice branding everywhere, so you're seeing defend the homeland all over the place. |
| 1:49.0 | They've got a kit-it-up black Mustang in there with the ICE logo on it. |
| 1:54.0 | They've got tables with agents and HR folks sitting behind them, ready to interview people. |
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