Independent, UK - Despite Trump casting a bright light on the immigration enforcement agency, the reality inside ICE offices is very dark. With high expectations, shifting priorities and a heightened fear of losing their job, morale is low and the pressure is high, officials told The Atlantic.
“It’s miserable,” a career ICE official told the magazine, characterizing the task as “mission impossible.”
Another former investigative agent told the magazine: “Morale is in the crapper.”
The ex-official added: “Even those that are gung ho about the mission aren’t happy with how they are asking to execute it—the quotas and the shift to the low-hanging fruit to make the numbers.”
Although the administration pledged to arrest “the worst of the worst,” data last month shows ICE has arrested just a small fraction of those convicted of serious crimes, such as murder and sexual assault. For example, of the 13,000 undocumented immigrants in the U.S. who were convicted of murder, the agency had arrested just 752 of them from October 1 to May 31.
Instead, data suggests the agency has arrested a large portion of non-criminals since Trump took office. Of the arrests from Trump’s inauguration through early May, 44 percent had a criminal conviction, 34 percent had pending charges and 23 percent had no criminal history, ABC News reported. After Memorial Day, the portion of non-criminal arrests spiked; 30 percent of those arrested had criminal convictions, 26 percent faced pending charges, while 44 percent had no criminal history.
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