Inside ICE’s ‘wartime’ hiring surge doubling the force as critics warn of militarized policing

ICE recruitment campaign uses military-style imagery and "wartime recruitment" strategy to hire thousands of immigration enforcement officers, according to internal documents.

ICE has described its $100 million recruitment push as a "wartime recruitment" strategy in internal planning documents as the agency moves to add thousands of new personnel, according to a Washington Post report published in December 2025. 

The campaign’s tone has drawn attention to recruitment messaging at a time when DHS’ interactions with the public have grown increasingly tense and, in some cases, deadly.