Commented on Thu Aug 7 21:41:27 2025 UTC
ICE Offers, Then Quickly Withdraws, Cash Bonuses for Swiftly Deporting Immigrants
The short-lived effort underscored the mounting pressure on ICE to meet President Trump’s aggressive deportation targets
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/...ytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
On Tuesday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced in an internal email that it would offer cash bonuses to agents for deporting people quickly, an incentive meant to motivate the staff to speed up President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
Less than four hours later, the agency abruptly canceled what was supposed to be a 30-day pilot program.
“PLEASE DISREGARD,” Liana J. Castano, an official in ICE’s field operations division, said in a follow-up email to agency offices around the country.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said the program had not been authorized by agency leaders, adding that “no such policy is in effect or has ever been in effect.” The email canceling the program was sent shortly after The New York Times inquired about its existence.
But the short-lived effort underscored the mounting pressure on ICE to meet Mr. Trump’s aggressive deportation targets. The agency has offered signing bonuses of up to $50,000, promised to hire as many as 10,000 agents and initiated a vigorous recruiting push on social media.
The Trump administration is seeking to transform ICE, infusing it with an enthusiasm for the president’s project of carrying out deportations on an unprecedented scale. Under Mr. Trump’s signature domestic policy bill, which he signed into law early last month, ICE’s annual budget will grow from about $8 billion to roughly $28 billion, making it the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government.
Stephen Miller, one of Mr. Trump’s top advisers and the architect of his immigration policy, has promoted ICE’s hiring drive in ideological terms.
“Want to mass deport illegals from Los Angeles?” he wrote on social media last week. “JOIN.ICE.GOV today and get a 50K signing/retention bonus. Make your family proud and be the hero America needs.”
Last week, the agency said it had issued more than 1,000 tentative job offers.
The bonus program that ended on Tuesday almost as quickly as it began had been described as a 30-day pilot, according to documents reviewed by The Times. Under its terms, ICE would hand out $200 bonuses for each immigrant deported within seven days of being arrested and $100 for those deported within two weeks, according to an initial memo signed by Ms. Castano that was sent to the directors and deputy directors of ICE’s field offices across the country.
It was meant to motivate officers to reduce a backlog of people awaiting deportation, “reducing overall removal costs and decreasing strain” on the agency’s detention resources, the memo stated.
To “maximize” their bonuses, the memo instructed ICE agents to deport eligible immigrants through a fast-track process known as expedited removal, which allows immigrants without legal status to be deported without court proceedings. It also said that agents could offer detainees the option of leaving the country voluntarily.
Ms. Castano did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Efforts to speed the pace of deportations — like the bonus program — could endanger the due process rights of immigrants by encouraging ICE agents to cut corners, immigration experts and former government officials said.
! They are getting what they voted for 
