The Dictatorship
The many, many obstacles to hiring 10,000 ICE agents
The repercussions of the sprawling bill President Donald Trump signed into law last week will be felt for decades. Of immediate concern to many critics is approximately $170 billion the law gives to the Department of Homeland Securityincluding almost $30 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose agents have been at the forefront of Trump’s aggressive mass deportation efforts.
While the original House version of the bill set a specific hiring target for ICE of at least 10,000 new agents, the final version signed into law simply gives ICE tens of billions of dollars for everything from an unspecified number of new officers to transporting deportees to IT upgrades. The White House is still saying it plans to hire 10,000 new officershowever, which would more than double the number of enforcement agents, and the “Big Beautiful Bill” gives him a lot of money to do so. But that may be harder than it looks.
In some ways ICE’s standards are already lower than other institutions, yet it still struggles to fill openings.
To begin with, ICE has historically struggled to fill open positions. When ICE tried to hire 10,000 more officers during the first Trump administration, a 2017 report by DHS’ inspector general found that a net increase of that size would require interviewing half a million people. The lift was even bigger for Customs and Border Protection, which would have needed to interview 750,000 to net just 5,000, or half as many.
Eight years later, it will most likely be even harder for ICE or other agencies to find new recruits. Since 2020, police departments at every level have struggled to recruit and retain officers; in fact, all public-sector agencies are finding it hard to hire people. And despite the surge in funding provided by the GOP megabill, the pay for ICE will most likely be fairly noncompetitive. The maximum base pay for federal law enforcement is $75,000 before regional cost-of-living adjustments. A current job posting for an “enforcement and removal operations” position posits a salary range of roughly $50,000 to $90,000. For comparison, the New York Police Department offers rookies a starting salary of just over $60,000, rising to over $125,000 in less than six years — and the department still can’t fill about 1,000 open positions.
Note, too, that ongoing protests against ICE are likely to make these logistical issues even bigger. People take jobs for both money and status. ICE already underpays compared with many (but not all) police departments; protests will serve only to further weaken the status of the job. Moreover, local police officers, unlike ICE agents, get to stay close to their homes and families and work for institutions that appear to be viewed more favorably than ICE. And these local departments still struggle to fill open positions.
ICE, of course, has several ways to address this logistical challenge — but all face logistical challenges of their own.
Perhaps the likeliest response to hiring problems will be for ICE to use the money to try to expand its 287(g) programwhich deputizes local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws. Such a move would not expand ICE’s actual headcount but simply reallocate how already-hired local police spend their time. That could alleviate ICE’s short-run logistical challenge, but it is also the option most vulnerable to local resistance. 287(g) laws require local governments to sign on, which means opponents can thwart them by targeting local leaders, not national ones. While it is true that about 300 local agencies have recently signed agreementsthat is a small fraction of the of 17,000 nationwide. And many states and localities already have either banned such agreements or limited the sorts of cooperation that’s possible, with more joining in.
The next most obvious move for ICE would be to lower hiring standards. This is obviously concerning, since that means the new hirees would be less competent and potentially more dangerous (think about who would be drawn to work for ICE right now, given its public profile). As CBP discovered after a similar hiring spree in the mid-2000s, this approach increases the risk of corruption and of hiring people looking to undermine an agency from within, including on behalf of drug cartels.
Note, also, that in some ways ICE’s standards are already lower than those of other institutions, yet it still struggles to fill openings. For example, ICE is exempted from a 2010 law mandating that CBP applicants pass polygraph tests — a law prompted by the problems caused by the previously mentioned hiring spree). It’s also not clear that current ICE officers would want to work alongside low-level recruits; the CBP union, for example, complained about the dangers of lowering hiring standards back in 2010.
Moreover, lowered standards are politically risky. People already don’t like ICE, and lower-quality recruits would raise the risk of violent overreactions that could hurt the agency’s reputation even more. Local police departments are already complainingpublicly, that ICE tactics are making their jobs harder.
It is also possible that ICE could turn to contractors to fill the gap. This would, unlike 287(g) programs, expand actual headcount — but only temporarily. Moreover, contractors appear to often cost perhaps as much as twice as much as federal direct hires, although the amount of money authorized by the bill makes this a less pressing issue. Relying on contractors would also introduce a real risk of overchargingwhich would burn through ICE’s budget more quickly, and if contractors get paid more than ICE agentsexpanding contracting would make it even harder to hire and retain permanent ICE agents.
A final concern is that perhaps ICE will try to recruit Proud Boys and other right-wing extremists. But that just raises the question of why these people haven’t already joined. ICE isn’t offering more, or at least much more, than it has over the years they’ve chosen not to join. One likely reason for this hesitancy is that many of them have safer, better-paying jobs. A quarter of convicted Jan. 6ers, for example, were business owners, and only about 5% were unemployed. It’s likely that many of these people would prefer to continue cheering ICE on from the sidelines.
The “big, beautiful bill” is obviously a boon to ICE. But the agency faces serious logistical challenges. Those challenges and the possible workarounds will both pose difficulties for those who favor the agency’s expansion and create opportunities for resistance by those who oppose it.
John Pfaff is a professor of law at the Fordham University School of Law. He is the author of “Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform.”
The Dictatorship
Iran moves to take permanent control of Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping choke point
Iran announced on Thursday that it was drafting a “protocol” that would allow it to “monitor transit” by oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuzthe strategic waterway Tehran has shut downsending oil and gas prices soaring in the U.S. and across the world.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said tanker traffic through the narrow route “should be supervised and coordinated” between Iran and Oman, the two countries that border the strait, according to a translation of a report from Iran’s state news agency cited by CNBC.
“Of course, these requirements will not mean restrictions, but rather to facilitate and ensure safe passage and provide better services to ships that pass through this route,” Gharibabadi said according to the report.
President Donald Trump has suggested that the U.S. may leave it to other countries to end Iran’s de facto blockade of the strait, which it enforces by firing missiles at tankers. Trump has called on European nations to do so, but experts say Europe lacks the military resources to halt Iranian attacks on tankers for the long term.
Iranian and Omani officials did not respond to requests for comment from MS NOW.
For decades, the strait has been an international waterway, controlled by no country, that ships from all nations could transit.
Gregory Brew, a senior Iran and oil analyst at the Eurasia Group, said that if Iran manages to take control of the Strait of Hormuz permanently, it would be a “colossal win” for the country.
“It’s a massive strategic win, given that Iran has demonstrated that it can close the strait,” Brew told MS NOW. “It’s a huge financial win.”
Brew added that if Iran gains long-term control of the straitit would be more powerful than it was before the Trump administration attacked it. Iran’s parliament passed a law to begin charging “tolls” of up to $2 million per ship, which could mean as much as $100 billion in annual revenue — or the equivalent of Iran’s current annual oil export earnings.
“It’s not innocuous,” Brew said, referring to the protocol announced on Thursday. “Iran has passed legislation and is now claiming to be coordinating with Oman in establishing joint management of the Strait of Hormuz.”
Brew predicted that Oman, which has less oil and wealth than other Gulf nations, may be willing to accept a temporary arrangement that could help end the conflict.
“The Omanis are probably hedging; they’ve always tried to manage their relationship with Iran, and they lose relatively little by cooperating with Iran right now to ease pressure on the strait,” Brew said. “The bigger question is whether they continue to cooperate after the war.”
Ted Singer, a former senior CIA official who oversaw the agency’s operations in the Middle East, said Iranian officials are likely trying to see what they can achieve.
“I wouldn’t see this as a fork in the road,” Singer told MS NOW.
Singer, who served as a CIA station chief in five different countries over a 35-year career, said Iranian officials could be trying to stoke division between gulf countries.
“The Iranians are good at doing more than one thing at a time,” he said. “Why not stake out a maximalist position on tolls, then toss out options to roil the waters?”
The United Arab Emirates, for example, is adamantly opposed to Iran taking control of the strait.
“The Iranians play multi-dimensional chess,” said Singer, now a senior adviser to the Chertoff Group, a security consulting firm run by Michael Chertoff, who served as secretary of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration.
“Try to create division between Oman and the rest of the Gulf countries,” Singer said. “Why not fiddle around with this and see if something sticks?”
David Rohde
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
Ian Sherwood is the director of international newsgathering for MS NOW, a former executive editor for NBC News and a former deputy Washington bureau chief for the BBC.
Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Targeting Iranian infrastructure: “President Trump celebrated the destruction of a bridge near Tehran on Thursday, warning on social media that there was ‘much more to follow.’ The attack on the B1 bridge between Tehran and the nearby city of Karaj killed eight people and wounded 95, according to Fars, a semiofficial Iranian news agency.”
* I don’t think the speech worked: “The price of oil rose sharply and stocks wavered on Thursday after President Trump, in an address from the White House the day before, said the war against Iran was ‘nearing completion’ but failed to offer a concrete timeline and committed to more attacks. In the 19-minute address, Mr. Trump said U.S. forces would hit Iran ‘extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.’”
* Reversing one of Noem’s worst ideas: “Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Wednesday rescinded a rule that DHS expenditures over $100,000 be personally approved by his office, ending a widely criticized policy implemented by his predecessor Kristi Noem that critics said put a particular burden on the Federal Emergency Management Agency ’s work aiding disaster response and recovery.”
* The latest on the ballroom: “Donald Trump’s handpicked National Capital Planning Commission voted Thursday to authorize the president’s plan to erect a gilded 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom in place of the historic East Wing, which was destroyed last fall to make way for the ballroom.”
* Remember when Congress, by constitutional mandate, had the power of the purse? “President Donald Trump said Thursday he will soon sign an order to pay all Department of Homeland Security employees who have gone without paychecks during the record-long partial government shutdown that has reached 48 days.”
* A year after “Liberation Day,” there’s fresh tariff news: “President Donald Trump announced Thursday he will levy tariffs as high as 100 percent on some name-brand pharmaceuticals and is adjusting tariffs on products that contain steel and aluminum, the administration’s first move to expand duties since the Supreme Court dealt his trade agenda a blow in February.”
* The latest from Artemis II: “NASA’s latest update about the Artemis II moon mission shows a breathtaking view of Earth as the Orion capsule with four astronauts on board orbits tens of thousands of miles above. Hitching a ride beyond Earth’s atmosphere atop NASA’s powerful Space Launch System rocket, the three Americans and one Canadian selected for the mission are preparing to begin heading toward the moon.”
See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
A federal judge is weighing whether the Trump administration can legally build a 250-foot arch just across the Potomac River from the Vietnam and Lincoln memorials, as three veterans who fought in Vietnam have argued the project would violate federal law and permanently alter one of the country’s most sacred landscapes.
Judge Tanya Chutkan declined on Thursday to issue a preliminary injunction, instead asking the parties to report by 5 p.m. on Friday whether they can agree to halt groundbreaking while the case proceeds. If no agreement is reached, she will ask the executive branch to provide supplemental sworn declarations disclosing any awards, grants, contracts, permits or other relevant information related to the arch’s construction.
The suit was brought by three Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian, who argued the project would obstruct views of the Vietnam War and Lincoln memorials from Arlington National Cemetery. The plaintiffs contended the planned arch would violate federal laws governing historic sites and monuments, and the White House cannot lawfully proceed without congressional authorization.
The plaintiffs cited Trump’s various Truth Social posts and public statements to support their claim that construction is underway, pointing to design specifications, a target completion date of July 4 and renderings backed by a White House fact sheet. They also argued the National Park Service must sign off on any use of the land before construction begins.
President Donald Trump told reporters in January that his proposed arch “will be the most beautiful in the world,” and is already “being built.” He also shared renderings of the arch on his Truth Social account.
The government’s attorney, Bradley Craigmyle, argued that Trump’s media and social media statements constitute hearsay. Chutkan pushed back sharply, saying Trump’s posts are admissible as statements by a party. Throughout the hearing, Craigmyle argued the project is in the conceptual phase despite the president’s statements.
Today’s hearing comes as the National Capital Planning Commission voted 9-1, with two abstentions, to approve construction for Trump’s 90,000-square foot ballroom at the White House, clearing the final procedural hurdle for the project. Chutkan referenced the ballroom case during the hearing, saying, “If we haven’t had the whole White House ballroom situation, this might be a little more academic than it is now.”
Selena Kuznikov contributed to this article.
Peggy Helman is a desk associate at MS NOW.
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