Former ICE director says ‘wartime recruitment’ tactics like influencer campaigns and $50,000 bonuses could attract the wrong kind of agents

The Department of Homeland Security’s deployment of more than 2,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and agents—the largest such enforcement action in U.S. history—turned fatal on Wednesday when an ICE officer shot and killed a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis. 

The shooting was just one of several fatal incidents since ICE ramped up its mass deportation effort last year and raises questions about how officers are trained, especially as DHS has dodged questions about this process while more than doubling its number of agents since 2024. Recruitment efforts have been juiced by massive funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as taxpayers have found themselves funding an unprecedented swelling of immigration enforcement hiring.

Federal officers have also killed at least three other people, according to The Marshall Project, and have shot at least nine people since September, according to The New York Times. 

While ICE has ballooned to more than 22,000 agents—more than double from early 2025—the “wartime recruitment” tactics it has employed could be attracting combat-hungry o...