ICE more than doubled its workforce in 2025

The federal agency at the center of President Trump’s harsh crackdown on immigration enforcement has more than doubled its workforce, the Homeland Security Department announced, saying it took only four months to more than exceed its year-long goal. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement now employs more than 22,000 officers and agents, DHS said, up from 10,000 when Trump took office last year. The hiring surge marks a 120% increase to the workforce since July, when Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that provided $8 billion for ICE hiring. 

Those employees are already “on the ground across the country,” according to Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson. Neither ICE nor DHS responded to an inquiry into how many of the new hires are already deployed. 

The speed of deployment reflects DHS shortening the training for ICE agents from six months to around six weeks, allowing newly onboarded staff to quickly get into the field. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, which handles training for more than 75 federal law enforcement agencies, has also severely curtailed its operations for non-ICE personnel to enable the agency’s recruits to deploy more rapidly. 

ICE has also significantly hastened its hiring process, sorting through more than 220,000 applicants to onboard the 12,000 new hires. It has offered $50,000 signing bonuses and expanded student loan repayments as incentives while removing age caps. It also received direct hire authority to circumvent some of the normal hurdles to federal hiring. 

“The accelerated hiring tempo has allowed ICE to place officers in the field faster than any previous recruitment effort in the agency’s history,” DHS said. 

The hiring marks a dramatic turnaround for the agency, which has for years maintained flat staffing levels even as Trump prioritized it in his first term. ICE solicited vendors to help recruit and onboard staff during that period, but canceled the request before it got off the ground. 

The agency exceeded its goal of hiring 10,000 officers and agents within a year, citing a “data-driven outreach effort.” It is still encouraging interested individuals to apply, though it has not publicly set a hiring target for 2026. Its chief human capital officer, who had spearheaded the efforts, recently left the agency for a new job at the Office of Personnel Management. 

ICE has expanded its operations and deployed aggressive tactics across the country to fulfill Trump’s promise of mass deportations. Its efforts have garnered significant attention and pushback from lawmakers and advocacy groups. The Supreme Court in September greenlit the agency’s use of race and other factors in making immigration stops. In addition to the hiring surge, the Trump administration has tapped law enforcement personnel from across federal agencies to support ICE’s efforts. 

The DHS inspector general is currently investigating ICE’s hiring and training efforts to monitor if the agency can “meet operational needs.”