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DHS Removes Age Caps and Offers $50,000 Bonuses to Ramp Up ICE Recruitment

The initiative has drawn more than 80,000 applications; courts are probing field warrant procedures, with agents reporting a tenfold rise in assaults

Federal agents outside of immigration court rooms at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building in New York, US, on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025. The Trump administration is ramping up a massive hiring spree at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, offering up to $50,000 signing bonuses, waiving age limits and invoking wartime-style imagery in a bid to lure thousands of new officers.
A federal agent wears a badge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement while standing outside an immigration courtroom at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York, on June 10, 2025.

Overview

  • Homeland Security waived ICE’s upper age limit so anyone 18 or older can apply, and candidates with prior law enforcement training may complete the academy in weeks instead of months.
  • Funded by the $170 billion One Big Beautiful Bill, ICE is offering up to $50,000 in signing bonuses alongside student loan repayment, enhanced retirement and overtime incentives to fill 10,000 new positions.
  • DHS has received over 80,000 applications for the recruitment drive’s 10,000 openings, far exceeding initial job-offer targets for the first week.
  • Training materials directing agents to carry blank I-200 forms for field warrants are now under legal challenge in Chicago for potentially circumventing due-process rules.
  • ICE officers report a 1,000% increase in assaults on agents and local sheriffs warn that aggressive recruitment is poaching deputies from understaffed police forces nationwide.