'Poorly trained, overwhelmed and inexperienced': Who are the newest ICE agents?
On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti
WBUR
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has doubled over the past year -- driven by a massive recruitments campaign. Who the new recruits are and how they’re being trained.
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Transcript
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| 0:27.5 | A recent episode asks, |
| 0:29.1 | Are boardrooms ready for the new geopolitical reality? |
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| 0:37.9 | WBUR Podcasts, Boston. |
| 0:46.0 | This is on point. I'm Magna Chakrabardi. |
| 0:49.6 | Jenghis Yarr is a photographer and visual editor for ProPublica. |
| 0:54.0 | He's covered conflicts around the world, including in Iraq and Syria. |
| 0:58.9 | For the past week, he's been in Minneapolis. |
| 1:02.3 | He arrived just after U.S. citizen Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agents on January 7th. |
| 1:09.1 | This past Saturday morning, a second American, Alex Preddy, was gunned down in Minneapolis by federal agents. |
| 1:17.2 | Jenghis began his morning at breakfast with his family. |
| 1:22.2 | And a note, the first 30 seconds of the story you're about to hear from Jenghis includes sound of the gunfire |
| 1:28.4 | that killed Prattie. At breakfast, we started seeing the videos of the shooting coming across |
| 1:35.6 | social media and different chat groups. And so finished breakfast, and as we were leaving breakfast, my brother had a seizure, and I had to take him to the emergency room. |
| 1:53.1 | I was sitting in the waiting room, and on the TV screen, they were playing this video on repeat. |
| 2:00.0 | Ah! Ah! screen they were playing this video on repeat. There were two women sitting next to me. |
| 2:11.6 | There were two women sitting next to me and just overhearing them talk about having to prepare a go bag. |
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