ICE plans $100m yearlong ‘wartime recruitment’ media blitz to attract new agents

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reportedly planned a $100m, one-year media blitz for what it’s calling “wartime recruitment”, targeting conservative radio show listeners, gun rights aficionados, military affairs followers and men’s interests enthusiasts – among others in the Maga-verse – for jobs in the Trump administration’s next phase of its mass deportation campaign.

“Want to deport illegals with your absolute boys?” one of the agency’s ads says, directing interested readers to apply.

As ICE looks to hire for thousands of new positions, flush with cash after an unprecedented influx from Congress last summer, it’s relying on geofencing to ensure people near military bases, Nascar races, gun and trade shows, and college campuses receive its recruitment ads, according to an internal document reported by the Washington Post.

Officials also intend to spend $8m or more on deals with fitness, military and tactical/lifestyle online influencers, who would use their sway to push the administration’s immigration agenda through livestreams, events, and other content meant for their gen Z and millennial audiences.

“America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out,” ICE’s recruiting website says.

The administration’s hiring push comes after Donald Trump signed HR 1 into law in July, which allotted $45bn for immigration detention and $32bn for immigration enforcement-related activities and personnel.

Yet even as ICE now has the funds to hire about 14,000 new employees, its efforts to quickly do so have raised red flags among everyday citizens disgusted by the recruitment ads themselves and experts concerned that the speed and tone with which the federal government is pursuing new agents could attract more aggressive, combat-hungry applicants.

“They’re aiming for that sweet spot of people who’ve got something to prove, who want to have that power, under the guise of patriotism,” Americus Reed, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told the Post.

ICE’s controversial ads have leaned heavily on American symbolism – Uncle Sam, George Washington, Lady Liberty – while casting immigrants as bad actors to convince potential deportation officers to apply.

Meanwhile, ICE is offering an up to $50,000 signing bonus, higher than the real median personal income for a year’s work in the US, as well as up to $60,000 in student loan repayment for those who join.

The agency has already received more than 220,000 applications and made more than 18,000 tentative job offers, sometimes on the spot. At an ICE recruitment fair in Arlington, Texas, more than a hundred people were waiting outside before the event started. Attenders told the New York Times they were there because they were “very patriotic” and committed to “guarding the homeland”.

“When I saw Uncle Sam pointing that finger, I just had it in my heart,” Mahin Ahmed, an ICE applicant, told the Times. “You’re thinking, ‘Look at this guy. He’s an immigrant. He wants to become a deportation officer.’ It doesn’t make any sense to you, makes 100 percent sense to me.”

With more ICE officers available, the White House border czar, Tom Homan, said that the number of immigrant arrests will “explode” in 2026, including through an increase in enforcement at workplaces, Reuters reported.

Homan’s comments came after the administration had signaled it would instead be toning down its public-facing immigration actions to focus on apprehending people with serious criminal convictions, in the face of widespread backlash to its violent and highly visible tactics in major cities around the country.

Already, ICE held a record number of people – 68,440 – in detention in recent weeks, the vast majority with no criminal conviction. But the administration remained far below its goal of a million deportations in its first year, with about 300,000 removals since Trump’s second inauguration.