ICE officers are burning out under relentless overtime and pressure to hit massive arrest quotas — and the Department of Homeland Security says the real morale-killer isn’t the workload, it’s Democrat politicians smearing federal agents as “gestapo” and “slave patrols.”
Current and former ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers told the Washington Examiner that exhaustion and chaotic leadership have gutted morale. Some officers — including Trump voters — claimed the agency is pushing underqualified recruits onto the street without proper training or background checks cleared.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller reportedly demanded 3,000 arrests per day during a heated meeting with ICE leaders in May 2025. The Trump administration has logged roughly 900,000 arrests in Trump’s second term — about 1,600 arrests per day, the highest rate under any administration.
“We’re being pushed to a breaking point. I don’t know where it will go, but it’s nowhere good.”
One ICE officer hired before the current administration said “mistakes are made because [officers are] overworked” on top of “pressure” from leadership “to get [new recruits] guns and badges quick.”
A second officer with more than a decade of experience said the administration had managed to upset some employees who celebrated Trump’s 2024 electoral win.
“Many on the right will think this is an attack on Trump,” he said. “I voted for Trump this time around. I believe in immigration enforcement. But man, it’s so disorganized and chaotic.”
The officer said requests for time off were regularly refused or canceled after initially being approved. Another officer said weekends off have become the exception.
“They constantly call us into work on our days off,” one immigration enforcement officer told the Washington Examiner.
Over the past two weeks, ICE officers conducted two separate traffic stops that resulted in the fatal encounters of individuals not subject to active immigration enforcement in both Maine and Texas. A third individual was struck by a tractor-trailer in Florida while fleeing ICE and other immigration enforcement personnel.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced this week that the department would pause the use of traffic stops during all immigration enforcement proceedings. Just one day later, however, Trump announced on social media that ICE would not pause using traffic stops as a law enforcement tool.
ICE has approximately 6,000 officers tasked with immigration enforcement inside the United States, as well as 10,000 new employees moving through the recruitment pipeline.
Officers and supervisors hired prior to 2025 claimed that new recruits being put on the street are underqualified and, in some cases, have not completed mandatory federal government background checks or been issued security clearances.
“A supervisor with the fugitive operations unit expressed frustration at how many teams are filled with officers who haven’t even cleared background and don’t have a security clearance. It’s not safe,” the first officer said.
A retired official who speaks with current ICE leadership regularly said he had heard the same from several field office directors.
“Some backgrounds take 3-6 months, so the person could have graduated and be working at a field office before their full clearance gets granted or denied,” the official said.
The former senior ICE official said ICE does not have an approved traffic stop or vehicle pursuit policy.
“The officers in the field need training, not just on procedures and tactics but on their legal authorities and what constitutes their ability to legally make a traffic stop and question/detain persons,” the former senior ICE official wrote in a text message. “I have personally been told by officers that they are concerned because without sufficient policies and training they fear they could be held personally liable.”
Field office directors who cannot hit arrest goals are being replaced. In order to meet the demands from Washington, field office directors “are pushing us to the breaking point,” said the second officer.
ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight 🔊 pic.twitter.com/O6L1iYt9b4
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 18, 2025
James Hamilton, a security consultant and former FBI supervisory special agent, said complaints from ICE were not unusual and part of the job.
“That’s law enforcement. I mean, I worked my a** off as an FBI agent. So no one promised you 40-hour weeks,” said Hamilton. “What happened in the last four years as an ICE agent, in terms of the frequency and the rhythm, if you will, of work — it was nowhere near what it is today.”
Hamilton said federal agents are not good at car stops because they get so little exposure to them compared to local and state police. He suggested the best course of action is to call local and state police to assist when it comes to attempting traffic stops.
However, the nature of ICE’s work has pushed away virtually all major cities from cooperating with ICE, leaving the federal agency largely on its own.
When asked about the plethora of officer complaints, a DHS spokesperson stated in an email Friday evening that “leave” for employees across the department was not being canceled and said the department believed morale was most affected by Democratic politicians smearing ICE.
“The worst thing for morale is sanctuary politicians’ constant smears against ICE including likening them to the gestapo, slave patrols, and secret police. This type of rhetoric is contributing to our officers facing coordinated campaigns of violence against them including a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them, 3,300% increase in vehicle attacks, and an 8,000% increase in death threats.”
President Trump and Secretary Mullin will always stand with ICE law enforcement officers, the DHS spokesperson said.
