ICE went on a hiring spree. Then workers left in record numbers

ICE hiring surge followed by unprecedented employee departures

Cybersecarmor.com – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expanded rapidly to support President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, bringing on thousands of employees in little more than a year. But the agency’s growth has been accompanied by a sharp rise in departures, with nearly 3,000 workers leaving during the first six months of 2026.

The scale of those exits is unusual in the agency’s recent history. More ICE employees resigned during the first half of 2026 than in any complete calendar year since 2012, the earliest year covered by federal personnel records. Firings have also climbed dramatically, surpassing the total number of terminations recorded during the decade preceding Trump’s second administration.

Traditionally, retirement has accounted for much of ICE’s employee turnover. This year, however, resignations and dismissals made up the larger share of separations. The pattern raises questions about whether the agency’s accelerated recruiting effort has created new pressures around screening, training and workplace conditions.

Rapid expansion brought major changes to the workforce

The Department of Homeland Security sought to widen ICE’s applicant pool through incentives that included $50,000 signing bonuses, student-loan repayment and the removal of age limits. DHS said the changes would allow more people to qualify for work supporting ICE’s mission, and the agency received more than 220,000 applications.

ICE hired nearly 12,000 full-time employees during the first year and a half of the second Trump administration. That total exceeded hiring across the prior decade. Many of the new employees entered an occupational category that includes deportation officers.

One month illustrated the pace of the hiring campaign: in September 2025, ICE added just under 2,500 people. That single-month total was larger than the agency’s hiring in any earlier full calendar year covered by the available data.

The educational makeup of incoming workers also shifted. During the decade before the second Trump administration, the largest group of new hires held graduate degrees, with bachelor’s degree holders close behind. More recently, people with a high school education or less formed the largest share of hires.

DHS said its education standards had not changed. The department did not answer questions concerning other findings about the hiring and departure trends, and ICE employees were not made available for interviews.

“ICE is hiring the best of the best to get the worst of the worst criminals off America’s streets,” a DHS spokesperson said. “The vast majority of new officers brought on during the hiring surge are experienced law enforcement officers who have already successfully completed a law enforcement academy.”

Short tenures point to challenges retaining new hires

The typical employee who resigned in 2026 had been with ICE for six months. For workers who were fired, the median tenure was less than four months. Those figures indicate that many departures involved people recruited during the recent expansion rather than longtime agency personnel.

Former ICE and Homeland Security officials said the turnover could reflect a combination of accelerated recruitment, morale problems and internal changes. They also warned that a large inflow and outflow of employees can complicate efforts to ensure that officers are properly screened and prepared before working in roles that may involve detention, arrests and deportation operations.

Claire Trickler-McNulty, an attorney who held senior positions at DHS under both Republican and Democratic administrations, said the figures raised concerns about the speed of the hiring process.

“That means that they were hiring people they shouldn’t have hired. They hired too many people too quickly,” Trickler-McNulty said. “If they’re getting fired, that means they weren’t fit for the job. And if they’re resigning, then they also weren’t fit for the job.”

The National ICE Officers Association and the Fraternal Order of Police, both of which represent ICE officers, did not respond to requests for comment.

Training program faces scrutiny

Questions about retention have coincided with concerns over instruction for new personnel. Ryan Schwank, an attorney who joined the ICE academy at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, in September 2025, taught legal courses for incoming recruits. He resigned five months later and became a whistleblower.

In the month he left ICE, Schwank appeared at a forum hosted by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, and Rep. Robert Garcia, a California Democrat. He described the training program as inadequate and said 240 hours had been removed from a curriculum that had previously totaled 584 hours.

Schwank said the eliminated instruction included material involving constitutional rights, firearms, force policies, lawful arrests, detention procedures and limits on officers’ authority. These subjects are central to decisions that can affect both the public and the people ICE encounters during enforcement actions.

“Deficient training can and will get people killed. It can and will lead to unlawful arrests, violations of constitutional rights, and a fundamental loss of public trust in law enforcement,” Schwank said during the forum.

At a federal budget hearing on June 3, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed that ICE’s training curriculum had been rewritten. He said the program would return to its regular standards beginning July 1.

DHS nevertheless said no training had been eliminated. The department declined to release either the revised curriculum or the version used a year earlier, leaving limited public visibility into the precise changes made during the hiring surge.

For ICE, the departures present a practical challenge beyond staffing totals. Hiring enough officers to meet an expanded enforcement mission is only one part of the task; retaining qualified personnel and ensuring consistent training are equally important to how the agency operates in communities across the country.