GovernmentExecutive.com

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is planning to hire 2,000 agents to work at its division responsible for detaining illegal aliens and sending them out of the United States when possible, according to a recent internal memorandum.

Stephen Dade, Pacific Rim regional director for the Federal Protective Service, which also is within ICE, told about 130 employees in an e-mail memorandum Sunday that "2,000 openings in [ICE's Office of] Detention and Removal [Operations] would be available soon." He added that "this is a good opportunity for police officers who do not want to become [FPS] inspectors to jump ship while the jumping is good."

Dade, when contacted by Government Executive, confirmed that ICE will start hiring shortly, but deferred all other questions to the agency's press office, which did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Dade said when the positions do become available, they will be listed at USAJOBS.gov .

If 2,000 agents are hired, ICE would grow by more than 13 percent, to about 17,000 employees from 15,000. ICE is the Homeland Security Department's largest investigative branch and has four main divisions, including FPS, which is responsible for securing the more than 8,800 federal facilities nationwide.

A source familiar with ICE management said hiring will begin soon for regions "where there are large [detention] facilities and immigration courts, such as Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix [and] Miami." The immigration agent positions will be "heavily weighted" toward the Southwest because of ongoing efforts to enforce immigration law there, the source said, but some positions may open up in New York, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco as well.

ICE will be hiring GS-1801 agents, Dade said in the memorandum. He told FPS employees that, in order to be eligible for the positions, they must be 37 or younger and meet other standards on which he did not elaborate. About 200 protective service employees qualify, he stated.

Another source aware of the hiring plans said a recent pitch offering employees at the cash-strapped FPS early retirement did not attract many takers. "A hundred or so people took [the offer]," the source said. "That's not enough."

In his memorandum, Dade said ICE regional directors were informed of the coming openings with the Office of Detention and Removal Operations Friday during a conference call. "I know that deep cuts still need to be made to get us through this temporary financial situation," he told FPS employees.

While the detention and removal office is bolstering its ranks in what appears to be a greater effort to control illegal immigrants and promote immigration law enforcement, FPS remains under a hiring freeze, sources confirmed. The agency faced a budget shortfall of $42 million in fiscal 2006, in part because of agencies' failures to make timely payments for security services provided by FPS. Congressional appropriators, in a report accompanying DHS' spending bill for fiscal 2007, requested a report explaining how the agency's funding predicament developed and how it will be fixed.

COMMENTS

• Maybe ICE should entertain the idea of separating immigration and customs SAs. CBP has already realized that the two don’t mix. CBP established a new “admissibility officer” position for just that reason. Then everyone can specialize in an area they are best at. I, for one, would gladly work immigration cases as an ICE special agent. Like I pointed out earlier, alien smuggling is organized crime at its best. Brushout, PA in S. Texas GovExec.com reader Posted December 15, 2006 8:29 PM
• The feller who keeps complaining about the "other" guys that have too much time on their hands amuses me. Also, FYI it’s the USAO that decides the threshold for prosecutions, not the SA. I agree with the rosy guy about the concept of hiring more IEAs. SAs should never be processing aliens. I will never understand the idea of having SAs doing IEA work. Why not have the IT people classified as SAs too? I disagree with the rosy guy about SAs leaving. I know of several who have left and I work in a small office. I am curious about why the rosy guy believes that a merger with CBP would weaken ICE even more. I agree that BP is becoming the 500-pound gorilla -- there is a new proposed addendum to the ICE/BP MOU. GovExec.com reader Posted November 30, 2006 11:14 PM
• Deportation Officer: I'm so glad you took time out of your "busy" work schedule to answer some of the points many of us have raised in this forum. Obviously, you don't work in my city, because when I call DRO, the phone rings endlessly, and nobody ever picks up. If I was mistaken about the green cards, sue me. Considering the brevity and low quality of the INS cross training we received, it's no wonder I got it wrong. I was proud to be a Customs agent for more than 20 years, and even prouder to be part of the oldest federal law enforcement agency, until its untimely demise. I survived the 9/11 attacks which destroyed my office in New York, only to find insult added to injury with the truly stupid merger with INS investigators into ICE (no offense to the INS agents, most of whom are good workers. In fact, we at Customs welcomed many of them to our agency over the years). Face it, the two jobs are vastly different, and nothing you or anyone in Washington can say will convince us otherwise. The real victims of this asinine idea are the American people, who think that DHS and ICE are fighting terrorism, when the opposite is true! Don't try to judge me until you have walked in my shoes. Nothing has changed for you, so how dare you criticize us for when we bring up valid disagreements with how things currently are, and offer equally valid suggestions for improving matters? The bottom line is -- if I had wanted to do immigration work I would have joined INS. I don't, and I didn't! Just because some bureaucrats and politicians waved their magic wands to create this mess, doesn't make it right. By the way, I am not typing this in the office, but at home, so spare me that tired old complaint when and if you respond to this post. Have a nice day, and enjoy the Kool Aid. GovExec.com reader Posted November 27, 2006 11:28 PM