Bombshell Daily Mail investigation reveals the shocking truth about the agents ICE has hired
The Trump administration's frantic push to hire 10,000 new deportation officers by year's end has spiraled into what insiders describe as a national embarrassment - with lax vetting and a signing bonus of up to $50,000 luring in a wave of woefully unfit recruits.
An exhaustive Daily Mail investigation exposed how Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lowered standards so dramatically that the new cohort now included recent high school graduates and applicants who can 'barely read or write' as well as those who lack basic physical fitness and even have pending criminal charges.
Most of the new hires in the $30 billion initiative are retired law enforcement who are receiving virtual training and being repurposed for desk duty.
Meanwhile, total novices are being fast-tracked into the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, where instructors have been left astounded at the levels of incompetence.
'We have people failing open-book tests and we have folks that can barely read or write English,' one Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told the Daily Mail.
'We even had a 469-lb man sent to the academy whose own doctor certified him not at all fit for any physical activity.'
Insiders say the vetting process has been so rushed that officials didn't even wait for drug test results to come back before hiring recruits and flying them off to Georgia, only to discover afterward that tests came back positive.
ICE's rush to hire 10,000 new recruits by the end of December has devolved into chaos after the agency drastically lowered its standards to meet its goal, insiders tell the Daily Mail. Pictured: ICE trainees practice at a shooting range in Georgia
The scrambled effort to more than double the size of its deportation force come as a bid to fulfill Trump's campaign promise to supercharge deportations
A department spokesman said the hiring surge is advancing 'while maintaining its high fitness and training standards'.
They added: 'ICE has received more than 200,000 applications from patriotic Americans who want to join ICE law enforcement to help us remove murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, and terrorists from our country.
'The vast majority of new officers – more than 85 percent – brought on during the hiring surge are experienced law enforcement officers who have already successfully completed a law enforcement academy.
But staff at the Georgia academy tell a different story.
In one shocking incident, they were left shaking their heads when one student asked to be excused from class so he could attend a court date on a gun charge.
Other recruits were even discovered to have tattoos associated with gangs and white supremacists when they stripped off their shirts during workouts.
Reports from FLETC include incidents of violence, disruptive behavior, and allegations of sexual misconduct on campus, most handled internally.
One recruit, 29-year-old Darien Coleman, was arrested by county police for allegedly exploding at a FLETC bus driver and smashing his phone, according to records obtained by the Daily Mail.
He was described as a 'known problem' on campus who had just resigned when he demanded a ride from the driver.
Sources say another male recruit, after hitting the bars, was caught barging into a female dorm and hitting on the occupants. Another groped a woman in class.
'It wasn't like, 'oops, I touched your boob',' one source said. 'Nope, he went full on to predator mode while he was doing the defensive tactics training.'
Since the recruitment campaign began in July, 584 recruits have failed out of the academy as of December 1, according to records reviewed by the Daily Mail.
Over the same period, the figures show that 558 had graduated, and another 620 were still in training.
In August, DHS invited the media to tour the academy, a sprawling facility near the coast in Brunswick, Georgia. An instructor was seen demonstrating getting a 170lb dummy into a position to be handcuffed
ICE Special Response Team members are pictured demonstrating how to enter a residence in the pursuit of a wanted subject at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) in Brunswick, Georgia
Sources say applicants with no experience are being fast-tracked into the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Georgia, where instructors have been astounded at the levels of incompetence
However, ICE still appears on track to meet its target of 10,000 new hires, an outcome insiders attribute to the lowering of standards.
Sources tell the Daily Mail that many of these recruits won't be street-ready or even trained to fully process arrests.
'Even those who identify as former law enforcement, they're not being properly vetted and require basic training,' one official said.
'We're getting folks that are not going to be truly operational because they can't be placed on at large teams to make arrests.
'People are also coming from other law enforcement agencies where they don't have the experience to do detailed immigration work,' the source added.
But those older recruits, often returning after years of absence, do serve a greater purpose as far as the leadership is concerned.
'They can come on board without the training or the check so that we can say that we're getting close to meeting the goal,' the source said.
Applicant age is both older and younger than ever before, after ICE decided to widen the range to meet this year's hiring goals. The minimum age has been lowered from 21 to 18 and capped at 65 from 40.
Those lacking prior experience can start collecting salaries in a matter of days, rubber-stamped by an overstretched HR department that clears applicants to 'Enter on Duty' status with little to no screening.
Some of these new hires do not even have to report to field offices before they get sent to the academy, where they are given free room and board for six weeks of training — shortened from the standard 16 weeks.
'A lot of these background checks aren't being done till after these people have reported for duty,' one DHS official told the Daily Mail.
'They're just trying to process them in as quickly as possible to say that we have people operational. Anything that they think may have a pulse, they're moving through.'
The DHS official called the rushed hiring process 'willful blindness' and said this will continue until the department meets its goal by the end of December.
'We are bringing in people with the understanding that many of these people are not going to make it,' the source explained.
'They only care about how many unique individuals 'Enter on Duty.' What happens after that is irrelevant to them.'
Similar shady math was applied in October, when DHS leaders announced that a staggering 175,000 Americans had applied for the positions.
One recruit, 29-year-old Darien Coleman, was arrested by county police for allegedly exploding at a FLETC bus driver and smashing his phone, according to records obtained by the Daily Mail
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has publicly called on newcomers to help 'get the worst of the worst criminals out of our country'
However, the Daily Mail can now reveal that many of the candidates were counted more than once because they applied for multiple job announcements.
Meanwhile, many other 'applicants' were suspected to be AI bots and pranksters, providing addresses such as '123 Sesame Street' and their job experience as 'f**king your mother.'
'The number they're giving is already inflated because we have a number who aren't even qualified but because the system they're using is so poor, nobody's vetting this,' the DHS source said.
One man was initially declared eligible after citing his wife as a reference and claiming to be an Egyptian police officer but ultimately got flagged.
Other misfits have skated through, with HR staff facing more pressure to be efficient than thorough.
'The headquarters folks in the department and at the White House have threatened people's jobs if they don't make the numbers they're expected to meet,' the DHS official told the Daily Mail.
A source said ICE deputy director Madison Sheahan, at a recent meeting, chewed out staff about the purportedly slow pace of hiring, allegedly threatening them saying: 'if you can't meet this number, send me an email now and I'll have you reassigned to FEMA.'
Tyshawn Thomas, the HR chief with ICE, was transferred out of his position last month, purportedly due to pressures of the job.
Federal agents including ICE officers are seen dragging a man away after an immigration court hearing in July
Despite the hiring spree, sources say many of these recruits won't be street ready or even trained to fully process arrests. Here ICE Homeland Security Special Investigations (HSI) agents arrest alleged immigration violators
Sources say he recently had to be taken out of the building in an ambulance after a stress-related 'fainting episode.'
'The Human Resources side of the house is just a pass-through entity that is doing zero vetting,' the source told the Daily Mail.
As a result, the administration is making good on a pledge to more than double the size of its deportation force in keeping with Trump's campaign promise to supercharge deportations.
In August, DHS invited the media to tour the academy, a sprawling facility near the coast in Brunswick, Georgia.
The department showcased a small group of recruits learning how to draw and fire weapons, and pull a wounded partner out of danger, and a classroom stacked with books on the Fourth Amendment and immigration law, the Associated Press reported at the time.
Officials there announced that ICE was able to shorten training, in part, by cutting Spanish-language requirements and letting field offices around the country provide whatever follow-up training is necessary.
The floodgates of recruits into the academy opened soon after the media left town.
Some instructors have privately griped to HQ staff, while recruits have vented to their families about what they were experiencing.
One young recruit, a college grad who is seeking to follow in his father's footsteps by becoming a deportation officer, likened it to a 'circus.'
'My son called and told me that in the middle of class, officers came in and removed two of his classmates for 'stolen valor,'' the father told the Daily Mail, referring to individuals who falsely claim to have military experience.
One source claimed ICE deputy director Madison Sheahan ordered staff to pick up the hiring pace or to send her an email 'to have you reassigned to FEMA'
Noem is seen participating in ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Phoenix, Arizona, in April
He said his son also complained about the training seeming rushed.
'There's a lot of frustration,' he said. 'You've got kids there that don't have aptitude to pass the basic tests and are flunking.
'And on the other side, you have students failing PT (physical training) because they couldn't run or do sit-ups.'
The academy recently eliminated the sit-up requirement because so many students couldn't handle them — and subbed in a sprint challenge, the Daily Mail has learned.
The former instructor said his greatest concern is that the modifications to training will produce less experienced officers.
'Stephen Miller and Corey Lewandowski want what they want and are going to do whatever they have to do to get people through,' the father said, referring, respectively, to the DHS adviser and Noem's 'de-facto' chief of staff.
'But once you've prostituted your hiring standard, you've prostituted everything,' he added.
'Everyone from ICE sees what's coming into the field and they're f**king petrified.'
The DHS official sounded a similar alarm.
'We do have some new recruits that are fantastic, but we're now bringing people in who shouldn't be hired at all into any federal government job, definitely not one that has a badge and a gun,' the official said.
'We have kids who graduated from high school in June and are at the basic academy now,' the source added.
'And even these older folks that we're hiring, they're not people who need to be out on the street with a badge and a gun anymore.
'This isn't the department of baking cookies,' the source said. 'This is the Department of Homeland Security, where you can be deported from the country.
'And we're now employing people who are not equipped to tie their own shoelaces.
'This whole thing is a complete disaster from beginning to end.'
