By Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke
WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is struggling to keep pace with vetting new hires during its historic recruitment push and is laying out a process to deal with allegations of past misconduct among recruits, the agency said in an internal email on Monday, underscoring concerns about ICE’s rapid expansion.
The email, sent to supervisors with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division and seen by Reuters, said the “high volume of new hires” and stalled background checks could create uncertainty for field offices when allegations arise related to actions before joining ICE, and that allegations should be referred to the internal Integrity Investigations Unit.
“If a Field Office receives derogatory information about a newly hired employee’s conduct prior to ERO employment (e.g., termination or resignation in lieu of terminationfrom another law enforcement agency for misconduct), please refer the matter to IIU,” it said.
12,000 ICE OFFICERS HIRED: DHS
President Donald Trump’s Republican administration hired thousands of ICE officers last year to support Trump’s mass deportation drive, a fast pace that raised questions about the vetting and quality of recruits.
Trump portrays migrants as criminals and a drain on U.S. communities, and says the deportations are needed after high levels of illegal immigration under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. But public support for Trump’s immigration approach has declined in recent months as federal officers arrested non-criminals, including families and children, and clashed with residents, killing two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, said in January it had hired 12,000 ICE officers on top of an existing force of 10,000 officers, although a federal workforce database showed fewer hires, creating a net gain of 6,200 when factoring in departures.
DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis denied ICE was struggling to process background checks and said the email was meant to inform supervisors of resources available to them.
“This was not highlighting any vetting problems, but rather a reminder of the services and resources ICE provides supervisors,” she said. “All new hires go through extensive background checks and continuous vetting when they are hired including criminal and financial checks.”
DHS said in late January that the lower hiring figures in the federal database were due to a lag in federal reporting.
An administration official said White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller last year pushed hard on conference calls for ICE to hit aggressive hiring goals before year-end.
“The president’s entire team has worked to make sure his agenda is implemented,” a White House official said in response to a request for comment regarding Miller’s role.
RECRUITS FLAGGED FOR SUSPECTED GANG TIES, CRIMINAL CHARGES
Democrats and some former ICE officials have raised concerns that accelerated recruitment could let unqualified or dangerous candidates into the ranks.
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last year, compared ICE recruitment to a Border Patrol hiring push in the 2000s that was followed by more allegations against agents. Durbin, the second-highest-ranking Democratic senator, said ICE’s surge would “likely result in increased officer misconduct.”
Claire Trickler-McNulty, who was an ICE official under former Democratic President Joe Biden, said background checks help ensure officers have a history of following the law and detect prior actions that could make them vulnerable to blackmail.
“To speed, shortcut, or limit background checks or training puts the public and other law enforcement officers at risk,” she said.
Some recruits have been flagged for problems after being hired, one current and one former U.S. official told Reuters, requesting anonymity to share details on internal operations.
In one instance last year, two recruits were flagged as suspected members of the MS-13 gang based on their tattoos while attending the training academy in Georgia, the former official said. At least five other trainees were fired when ICE learned they had active warrants for their arrest, the former official said.
“They weren’t completing the background checks before they would get to the academy,” the former official said.
One hire was escorted out of an ICE office in February after a problem was detected in his background check, the current official said.
ICE does not publish data on the number of new hires it has fired. NBC News reported in October 2025 that ICE had dismissed more than 200 recruits since the hiring surge began, citing internal data.
In another office, a third of hires are waiting for their stalled background checks to be completed, including some who have graduated from training, the official said.
(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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