ICE

Axios - A growing number of U.S. citizens — many of them Latinos — are reporting they were detained for various periods by immigration agents in what critics say were instances of racial profiling and overzealous policing...

• U.S. citizens aren't supposed to be arrested or detained unless agents allege they're breaking laws. But reports of citizens of Latino descent being detained — or stopped and asked to prove citizenship — are rippling through Latino communities nationwide.

...Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, told Axios that recent reports of citizens wrongly being arrested are false — and that "the media is shamefully peddling a false narrative" to demonize ICE agents.

• But an Axios review of news reports, social media videos and claims by advocacy groups about raids since President Trump took office found several instances in which U.S. citizens alleged they were wrongfully detained — in one case, for 10 days in immigration detention.

In May, ICE briefly detained Florida-born Leonardo Garcia Venegas from his job at a construction site in Foley, Ala. Agents alleged that Garcia's Real ID was fake, according to Noticias Telemundo.

• Immigration officials held U.S. citizen and Albuquerque resident Jose Hermosillo for 10 days in Arizona's Florence Correctional Center after arresting him, and didn't believe him when he said he was a citizen, Arizona Public Media reports.
• Last month, ICE briefly detained U.S. citizen Elzon Lemus, an electrician from Brentwood, N.Y., during a traffic stop after agents told Lemus he "looked like" someone they were looking for, CBS News reported

 MSNBC -  While the original House version of the [ICE] 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 officers, however, which would more than double the number of enforcement agents, and the “Big Beautiful Bill” gives him a lot 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.