“The plan, when I went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Career Expo in Texas last August, was to learn what it was like to apply to be an ICE agent,” writes Laura Jedeed. “Who wouldn’t be curious? The event promised on-the-spot hiring for would-be deportation officers: Walk in unemployed, walk out with a sweet $50k signing bonus, a retirement account, and a license to brutalize the country’s most vulnerable residents without consequence—all while wrapped in the warm glow of patriotism.”
“There’s only one “Laura Jedeed” with an internet presence, and it takes about five seconds of Googling to figure out how I feel about ICE, the Trump administration, and the country’s general right-wing project,” she writes. “My social media pops up immediately, usually with a preview of my latest posts condemning Trump’s unconstitutional, authoritarian power grab. Scroll down and you’ll find articles with titles like “What I Saw in LA Wasn’t an Insurrection; It Was a Police Riot” and “Inside Mike Johnson’s Ties to a Far-Right Movement to Gut the Constitution.” Keep going for long enough and you might even find my dossier on AntifaWatch, a right-wing website that lists alleged members of the supposed domestic terror organization. I am, to put it mildly, a less-than-ideal recruit.”
And yet, she was accepted. For more from Jedeed in Slate:
I wonder if groups of liberals living in conservative strongholds could band together and join ICE and just fucking ruin conservatives’ days by assaulting and detaining them for not having the proper paperwork? It’s not like they have any oversight whatsoever and if the wrong people get detained for a couple days, they just shrug and say “oops my bad!”
Well it looks like having lax hiring standards and neglecting to do proper background checks on job applicants is having some negative consequences:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/personal-details-of-thousands-of-border-patrol-and-ice-goons-allegedly-leaked-in-huge-data-breach/
I'd suggest joining ICE to gum up the works by following the exact letter of the law, but I think that might get you actually shot in the back by the other ICE bastards.
Exactly. Quiet-quitting and carefully targetted civil disobedience can still support in disruption of authoritarian systems. We dont have to be perfect, we just have to do what we can. At least start with believing something can be done. These liberals drive me crazy
It’s not revenge. Conservatives don’t think something is a problem until it affects them personally. They lack empathy and imagination. Showing them the problem firsthand is the only way to make them understand.
I don’t see how it would backfire, unless you mean against you personally.
Enough maybe with irrelevant labeling of people unknown to you. Humans, regardless of thoughtless labelling, go through life exactly like that. It’s not a political thing.
You're framing the legitimate issue like some kind of prank. The reason ICE is bad is because people of all walks aren't joining. There's a social filter that filters out all but the worst and that means the agency is run by and for all but the worst.
We need immigration enforcement. Doesn't matter what you call it. Other countries have way more stringent and present immigration enforcement but they don't call it ICE. Often it's the police.
Yes, liberals will have to accept ICE's role at least and embrace it partially in order to make it humane. Pretending like it will go away is silly and childish.
I'm a progressive in a deeply conservative southern community that works at farmer's markets throughout the year. There are plenty of hippy types at the market but many more multigenerational christian conservatives and outward maga. Since this ICE shit popped off the hippies stopped talking shit in whispers and the maga regulars stopped wearing flair. trump did his opposition a favor by creating such a clear proof of everything libs accused him of being. I'm half expecting pop culture to start churning out Death Wish style films squarely targeting immigration enforcement officials any day now.
Try to keep up. At the top of the article the author enumerates all her opposition to ICE in addition to her military creds where she already defended democratic institutions.
Did you honestly think someone other than a journalist was going to report the actual process at a national level?
And being pro-Democracy and 1st amendment is a patriot thing not a “liberal” thing.
Liberals are too comfortable in their privilege to actually challenge the status quo. If they legitimately gave their life for actual liberty they were probably leftists
Did you participate in the January 6th Insurrection?
Are you or someone you know a current or former member of any of the following right wing militias: Patriot Prayer, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, 3percenters, etc?
I know you're making a joke, but that's not what is happening:
>Many of ICE’s critics worry that the agency is hoovering up pro-Trump thugs—Jan. 6 insurrectionists, white nationalists, etc.—for a domestic security force loyal to the president. The truth, my experience suggests, is perhaps even scarier: ICE’s recruitment push is so sloppy that the administration effectively has no idea who’s joining the agency’s ranks.
She later says that she missed the email with her tentative approval, so by the time she read it, they approved her medical clearance and the site stated that her physical fitness exam was initiated, both dated three days in the future.
A recruiter said the goal is to "get more badges and guns in the street." They don't care who is holding them... but clearly they just expect it to be neonazis.
But that's not necessarily who ICE is recruiting. They're recruiting anyone who wants an easy $50k and who likes the idea of committing violence. They're getting bullies and abusers, the violence and intimidation is what they signed up for.
Honestly this makes me think that there are quite likely a number of interlopers in their ranks. Not hundreds nor likely even dozens, but surely not zero.
It's not a bonus , it's a collar. You get 10k up front and the rest on a schedule. If you quit or are fired before the end of contract you must pay back a prorated amount.
They give them a bit of dosh to buy a car or pampers or strippers or some shit and then they got a hook in them. They are trapped by debt.
I guess this raises a question who is the servicer for the new debt? What is the required payback period and interest rate? Is it more able to be discharged by bankruptcy than student debt?
Because inevitably somebody will take it seriously and spread that misinformation elsewhere. It's happened again, and again, and again... Especially in times where emotional tensions are high and facts are discounted.
When was the last time you questioned what you read that aligns with your values, and asked for sources regardless?
Edit: incidentally, look at this reply I just got from another thread.. I'm not even sure if they're being sarcastic. This is why we clarify things because if neither side cares about facts then the truth no longer matters.
If you can’t tell whether that’s sarcasm you should see a shrink.
Edit: you also fail to distinguish between satire and sarcasm, which makes me think you’re probably not the right person to be engaging with on this one.
The act of pointing out is not for the benefit of us who already knew, but for those who are quick to judge based on little facts. I'm not sure what's unclear about that.
Haha, thanks. It's from a silly joke between a college friend and I where he was a superhero and I was Boy Asunder, his sidekick. And now I just realized this was almost 30 years ago and I feel so old.
In essence all you really have to pass initially is a credit check, and a criminal background check within a few days to weeks of that. Anything else goes into a queue that can take months.
People are dropping quotes, but this is the part that surprised me:
>Somehow, despite never submitting any of the paperwork they sent me—not the background check or identification info, not the domestic violence affidavit, none of it—ICE had apparently offered me a job.
She had a whole "to do" checklist to complete following her tentative employment offer (which was given after her preliminary attendance and interview at the expo), she just ignored all of it, and the onboarding still went ahead without her.
Makes me wonder how easy it is to get that $50k signing bonus and then just never show up. It's doubly disturbing that we're offering that much of a cash incentive from a department that isn't even doing basic onboarding paperwork.
From what I understand it's a "signing bonus" that arrives when you've been with the agency for five years or some other cure period.
They're almost certainly never going to pay it, or if they do, implementation is going to be so sloppy and the paperwork (as evidenced by this article) so threadbare that it will be rife with fraud.
Its impossible to get by design, they set it 5 years out because they know either the republicans will get voted out and the program will get dismantled or that the facists will succeed and claim mission complete in 2028 and downsize all the ~~idiots~~ agents out onto the street
Slight devil's advocate (and this regime is certainly the devil) - maybe they offered the job because they need their recruitment numbers, but then after if you fail your background check they yank the offer.
I know people who have been "hired" for jobs but then they have to wait for drug test/background check before they start the job.
Their hiring practices are clearly awful, just not convinced this is an example of it
After reading this, I have a theory that some recruiters may be fudging the paperwork to meet new hire quotas by doing stuff like what happened to the author - recruiters are pushing through “abandoned” applications as far as they can so they can tell their superiors that there totally are a bunch of recruits ready to start - even if the real number that physically show up to training is far smaller.
But given ICE’s huge budget increase, I also wonder if there’s embezzlement shenanigans going on; like recruiters are submitting fraudulent paperwork and “hiring” people just to skim off of payroll somehow…
It's ironic because checking paperwork is what necessitate immigration enforcement in the first place and precisely what they need to do to actually do it.
They offered the job because, as the article stated, the job fair was nearly empty. They didn't have enough serious applicants, so they offered it out of desperation.
>when I showed up at 9 a.m., the flood was notably absent: there was no line to check in and no line to go through security. I walked down nearly empty hallways, past a nearly empty drug testing station, and into the event proper, where a man directed me to a line to wait in for an interview. I took my spot at the end; there were only six people ahead of me.
This part gives me a little bit of hope. Not a lot of people signing up.
>And if they’re not going to screen me out, what hope is there of figuring out which recruit might one day turn into a trigger-happy agent who would forget that law enforcement officers are trained not to stand in front of vehicles, get jumpy, and shoot a 37-year-old woman to death on the streets of Minneapolis?
I keep seeing this framing and I don't think it's the right argument. The agent who shot Renee Good was a veteran with 10 years of field experience at ICE. He was a team leader who was responsible for training other people. The problem is not training or lax screening for new recruits. The problem is the whole agency itself is bad from the top down and the inside out. Renee Good wasn't shot because of bad training. The agent who shot her three times in the head called her a "fucking bitch" after he shot her. Other agents in the days since then have yelled at women protesters "haven't you learned your lesson yet?" and threatened unarmed citizens with deadly firearms. Two more civilians were shot the next day.
Note that I'm not saying that the lack of screening isn't a problem. It absolutely is bad that a lot of very fucked up people are being given a badge and a gun and let loose on civilians. However I'm also seeing some Democratic politicians saying that they will not agree to give more funding to ICE unless there is better training. They shouldn't be agreeing to give more funding to ICE at all, ever.
They aren't functioning as immigration enforcement. They are an unlawful paramilitary terror squad for the President. They are harassing and detaining more and more US citizens simply because they didn't have their ID on them. They are focusing on non-white civilians, including Native Americans. Do you even understand how fucked up it is to have armed agents on street corners demanding to see ID from random passersby? That is literally what is happening in Minnesota right now. If the President can do this in one state he can do it anywhere in your country.
Not to mention the admins blatantly racist statements about immigrants and encouragement of violent enforcement puts extra stress on the agents and guaranteed they would clash with the public when trying to do the job.
I'm not sure what recruiting is like right now, but it seems to be going somewhat okay. But a big part of the "recruitment" effort is about handing out contracts to GOP donors. During the first Trump admin, they gave out a contract to Accenture and paid them $297 million to hire new CBP agents and they only ended up with something like 30 new agents. The contract was so bad and at the time there was some pretense that the GOP cared about corruption that they had to cancel it.
But, I'm pretty sure a large amount of the DHS budget just disappears into private contractor hands.
"Many of ICE’s critics worry that the agency is hoovering up pro-Trump thugs—Jan. 6 insurrectionists, white nationalists, etc.—for a domestic security force loyal to the president. The truth, my experience suggests, is perhaps even scarier: ICE’s recruitment push is so sloppy that the administration effectively has no idea who’s joining the agency’s ranks."
"I couldn’t tell whether there were more white or Hispanic people waiting for their email, but it was close."
"What are we to make of all this? To be clear, I barely applied to ICE. I skipped the steps of the application process that would have clued the agency in on my lack of fitness for the position. I made no effort to hide my public loathing of the agency, what it stands for, and the administration that runs it. And they offered me the job anyway."
Frankly, I figure this is about what everyone figured was going on with their hiring practices. The Trump admin, and even just Trump himself have proven themselves to be wholly incompetent when it comes to hiring anyone and the idea of background checks probably has been totally waved away due to them only caring if the person applying is in favor of Trump’s agenda.
This is one of the biggest problems with the quasi-fascistic
populism that the GOP has fallen into, you can’t hire “the best people” when your primary hiring objective is only bringing in those who agree with or would otherwise overlook your agenda for personal gain.
It’s one of the main reasons that governments that fall into such a trap end up failing over time. They just breed incompetence via this willful negligence for objectivity. So long as the public can easily see the emperor is wearing no clothes, the only people they will attract and hire are those who express they are willfully blind and no other qualification is necessary.
But you don't need competence when the goal is oppression and your enforcers are at least smart enough to coordinate and shoot.
Iran hasn't fallen apart yet, it's had way longer to fall foul of anti-intellectualism. Maybe they're more intelligent than Trump and co, I doubt they're any more intelligent than Vance and his backers though.
Why aren't y'all applying en-mass, getting hired and then just not showing up?
It's a great sap on their resources since they will have to keep spending resources on recruitment. Plus they're so incompetent there's a slim chance they don't remember to get your signing bonus back.
"What I actually saw was so implausible, so impossible, that at first I did not understand what I was looking at.
Somehow, despite never submitting any of the paperwork they sent me—not the background check or identification info, not the domestic violence affidavit, none of it—ICE had apparently offered me a job."
Saw someone on another anti ICE post advocating for everyone interested in resistance to get a copy of the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. It outlines many non-violent forms of resistance that were used to against fascists in Europe. Many tactics still usable.
You know how there are reddit posts about people who get remote jobs and do basically no work for their paycheck? What this article describes sounds a lot like it would be pretty easy to become an ICE officer on paper and collect a signing bonus and paychecks without actually doing any work.
The other possibility is that they’re just pretty much accepting all applications on paper, as a “projection of strength.” It sounds a lot better to the base and for intimidation purposes for them to claim they hired 12,000 new agents last year, even if thousands of those had the same experience as the writer of this article and don’t actually work for ICE but there’s a government database somewhere that says they do to juice the numbers.
> become an ICE officer on paper and collect a signing bonus and paychecks without actually doing any work.
Seriously, this is a sign guys. Sign up, take the bonus, and be the most incompetent ICE agent you can be. Fumble everything. Drive your car repeatedly into the curb. Accidentally ~~taste~~ tase your partner.
How many murderers, rapists and pedos did ICE hire? These people will be given access to women and children who are kidnapped. This is the summation of this writer. Right now in St Paul-Minnesota, ICE outnumbers local police by perhaps 2-1. They are saying every resident in the south part of the city cannot avoid ICE. When putting these 2 observations together, I would say do not leave your home if you are a younger female with kids. You might be targeted by unvetted criminals wearing masks.
Now Trump is threatening NYC. NYC has a police force the size of a large army. Will Trump employ sonic weapons? Sleuths need to cross reference recent leak of ICE identities with criminal databases, including J’6ers, Proud Boys etc. This infiltration by criminals into ICE could give Blue cities like NY the moral right to openly oppose ICE. I bet NY also has sonic weapons etc. If they organize they could deter attack by ICE.
[OP] Slate | 2 months ago
The plan was never to become an ICE agent.
“The plan, when I went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Career Expo in Texas last August, was to learn what it was like to apply to be an ICE agent,” writes Laura Jedeed. “Who wouldn’t be curious? The event promised on-the-spot hiring for would-be deportation officers: Walk in unemployed, walk out with a sweet $50k signing bonus, a retirement account, and a license to brutalize the country’s most vulnerable residents without consequence—all while wrapped in the warm glow of patriotism.”
“There’s only one “Laura Jedeed” with an internet presence, and it takes about five seconds of Googling to figure out how I feel about ICE, the Trump administration, and the country’s general right-wing project,” she writes. “My social media pops up immediately, usually with a preview of my latest posts condemning Trump’s unconstitutional, authoritarian power grab. Scroll down and you’ll find articles with titles like “What I Saw in LA Wasn’t an Insurrection; It Was a Police Riot” and “Inside Mike Johnson’s Ties to a Far-Right Movement to Gut the Constitution.” Keep going for long enough and you might even find my dossier on AntifaWatch, a right-wing website that lists alleged members of the supposed domestic terror organization. I am, to put it mildly, a less-than-ideal recruit.”
And yet, she was accepted. For more from Jedeed in Slate:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/01/ice-recruitment-minneapolis-shooting.html?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_content=ice_job&utm_campaign=&tpcc=reddit-social--ice_job
tinygraysiamesecat | 2 months ago
I wonder if groups of liberals living in conservative strongholds could band together and join ICE and just fucking ruin conservatives’ days by assaulting and detaining them for not having the proper paperwork? It’s not like they have any oversight whatsoever and if the wrong people get detained for a couple days, they just shrug and say “oops my bad!”
stanthemanchan | 2 months ago
Well it looks like having lax hiring standards and neglecting to do proper background checks on job applicants is having some negative consequences:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/personal-details-of-thousands-of-border-patrol-and-ice-goons-allegedly-leaked-in-huge-data-breach/
morsindutus | 2 months ago
I'd suggest joining ICE to gum up the works by following the exact letter of the law, but I think that might get you actually shot in the back by the other ICE bastards.
Multigrain_Migraine | 2 months ago
If I were in a position to join it would not be in order to target conservatives. But I might mysteriously never quite manage to make any arrests.
wolfgenius | 2 months ago
Exactly. Quiet-quitting and carefully targetted civil disobedience can still support in disruption of authoritarian systems. We dont have to be perfect, we just have to do what we can. At least start with believing something can be done. These liberals drive me crazy
tinygraysiamesecat | 2 months ago
If conservatives start to turn on ICE, it’s a net positive. Use your brain.
horseradishstalker | 2 months ago
Maybe it’s time to ditch labels and choose to act in accord with our shared humanity. Just a thought.
AppropriatePresent99 | 2 months ago
How about Auntie Tifa joins to disrupt fascism from the inside?
tinygraysiamesecat | 2 months ago
Why not? If conservatives start to hate ICE, that’s a good thing.
Multigrain_Migraine | 2 months ago
Because I'm not out for revenge, and it would quickly backfire. Sabotage has to be subtle to be effective.
Fit_Student_2569 | 2 months ago
It’s not revenge. Conservatives don’t think something is a problem until it affects them personally. They lack empathy and imagination. Showing them the problem firsthand is the only way to make them understand.
I don’t see how it would backfire, unless you mean against you personally.
horseradishstalker | 2 months ago
Enough maybe with irrelevant labeling of people unknown to you. Humans, regardless of thoughtless labelling, go through life exactly like that. It’s not a political thing.
Asiriya | 2 months ago
It really should be. It wouldn't take much to poison ICE for them too
RoboChrist | 2 months ago
Do you want to do that? I sure don't feel a strong desire to abuse power to oppress my "enemies".
Gay_For_Gary_Oldman | 2 months ago
Failure to use power to disenfranchise your enemies after the Civil War is why we're here.
chosenandfrozen | 2 months ago
Your enemies do.
pillbinge | 2 months ago
You're framing the legitimate issue like some kind of prank. The reason ICE is bad is because people of all walks aren't joining. There's a social filter that filters out all but the worst and that means the agency is run by and for all but the worst.
We need immigration enforcement. Doesn't matter what you call it. Other countries have way more stringent and present immigration enforcement but they don't call it ICE. Often it's the police.
Yes, liberals will have to accept ICE's role at least and embrace it partially in order to make it humane. Pretending like it will go away is silly and childish.
idlefritz | 2 months ago
I'm a progressive in a deeply conservative southern community that works at farmer's markets throughout the year. There are plenty of hippy types at the market but many more multigenerational christian conservatives and outward maga. Since this ICE shit popped off the hippies stopped talking shit in whispers and the maga regulars stopped wearing flair. trump did his opposition a favor by creating such a clear proof of everything libs accused him of being. I'm half expecting pop culture to start churning out Death Wish style films squarely targeting immigration enforcement officials any day now.
lloydthelloyd | 2 months ago
Is that what a 'liberal' does? Or does a 'liberal' defend human rights and democratic institutions?
horseradishstalker | 2 months ago
Try to keep up. At the top of the article the author enumerates all her opposition to ICE in addition to her military creds where she already defended democratic institutions.
Did you honestly think someone other than a journalist was going to report the actual process at a national level?
And being pro-Democracy and 1st amendment is a patriot thing not a “liberal” thing.
cqandrews | 2 months ago
Actually what liberals do is capitulate to fascists while wagging their fingers at them on social media
manimal28 | 2 months ago
Luckily though you have found a way to feel superior to both liberals and conservatives. While also doing nothing.
cqandrews | 2 months ago
Anybody that does nothing is morally superior to people actively ruining the country
horseradishstalker | 2 months ago
Some of them literally give their lives for their country so there’s that. Have you done that? /s
cqandrews | 2 months ago
Liberals are too comfortable in their privilege to actually challenge the status quo. If they legitimately gave their life for actual liberty they were probably leftists
kisforkat | 2 months ago
>too comfortable in their privilege to actually challenge the status quo
Hey!
>If they legitimately gave their life for actual liberty they were probably leftists
Well... Oh. Well I guess that explains me!
Fuddle | 2 months ago
Your pants are liberal
horseradishstalker | 2 months ago
You have time to survey every single liberal? You know the ones left of center?
frostysauce | 2 months ago
Liberals and leftists are different things. Liberals are not left of center; liberals are still capitalists.
horseradishstalker | 2 months ago
And another textbook socialist is heard from. Unless you are DJT you don’t get to pretend your made-up definitions matters.
whawkins4 | 2 months ago
Screening Questions to anyone joining ICE:
Did you participate in the January 6th Insurrection?
Are you or someone you know a current or former member of any of the following right wing militias: Patriot Prayer, the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, 3percenters, etc?
If so . . . YOURE HIRED!!!
Galevav | 2 months ago
I know you're making a joke, but that's not what is happening:
>Many of ICE’s critics worry that the agency is hoovering up pro-Trump thugs—Jan. 6 insurrectionists, white nationalists, etc.—for a domestic security force loyal to the president. The truth, my experience suggests, is perhaps even scarier: ICE’s recruitment push is so sloppy that the administration effectively has no idea who’s joining the agency’s ranks.
She later says that she missed the email with her tentative approval, so by the time she read it, they approved her medical clearance and the site stated that her physical fitness exam was initiated, both dated three days in the future.
A recruiter said the goal is to "get more badges and guns in the street." They don't care who is holding them... but clearly they just expect it to be neonazis.
ILikeNeurons | 2 months ago
Very few Americans want all illegal immigrants deported, and that was before Renee Good's shooting.
Aethien | 2 months ago
But that's not necessarily who ICE is recruiting. They're recruiting anyone who wants an easy $50k and who likes the idea of committing violence. They're getting bullies and abusers, the violence and intimidation is what they signed up for.
Simple_Song8962 | 2 months ago
$50k bonus IF they complete 5 years of service.
Valar_Kinetics | 2 months ago
Honestly this makes me think that there are quite likely a number of interlopers in their ranks. Not hundreds nor likely even dozens, but surely not zero.
ILikeNeurons | 2 months ago
Wonder what would happen if a bunch of Abolish Ice protesters decided to get jobs with ICE and then not meet their quotas.
Like, would they still get to keep their signing bonus?
klydsp | 2 months ago
I believe it's a 5 year contract and paid out 10k per year
LogicallyIncoherent | 2 months ago
Take a week off work. Join ICE. Can the bonus. Quit ICE. Go back to work.
icaruscoil | 2 months ago
It's not a bonus , it's a collar. You get 10k up front and the rest on a schedule. If you quit or are fired before the end of contract you must pay back a prorated amount. They give them a bit of dosh to buy a car or pampers or strippers or some shit and then they got a hook in them. They are trapped by debt.
fcocyclone | 2 months ago
I guess this raises a question who is the servicer for the new debt? What is the required payback period and interest rate? Is it more able to be discharged by bankruptcy than student debt?
icaruscoil | 2 months ago
I have no idea how the contract works but I doubt it can be discharged, that's a privilege held only by the rich these days.
LogicallyIncoherent | 2 months ago
Boo. Not entirely dumb then.
JaronK | 2 months ago
Nobody's getting the signing bonus. You have to stay on for five years to actually get it. It's a con.
Multigrain_Migraine | 2 months ago
If there aren't already then there's surely a huge opportunity for it.
whawkins4 | 2 months ago
If you know it’s satire, then why do you feel a need to correct it?
Etheo | 2 months ago
Because inevitably somebody will take it seriously and spread that misinformation elsewhere. It's happened again, and again, and again... Especially in times where emotional tensions are high and facts are discounted.
When was the last time you questioned what you read that aligns with your values, and asked for sources regardless?
Edit: incidentally, look at this reply I just got from another thread.. I'm not even sure if they're being sarcastic. This is why we clarify things because if neither side cares about facts then the truth no longer matters.
whawkins4 | 2 months ago
If you can’t tell whether that’s sarcasm you should see a shrink.
Edit: you also fail to distinguish between satire and sarcasm, which makes me think you’re probably not the right person to be engaging with on this one.
Etheo | 2 months ago
The act of pointing out is not for the benefit of us who already knew, but for those who are quick to judge based on little facts. I'm not sure what's unclear about that.
Edit: here in case you need another example of why this matters
boyasunder | 2 months ago
This should be on a banner every time someone goes to post.
ILikeNeurons | 2 months ago
Satirical posts should be distinguished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
6-ft-freak | 2 months ago
Off topic, but I love your username!
boyasunder | 2 months ago
Haha, thanks. It's from a silly joke between a college friend and I where he was a superhero and I was Boy Asunder, his sidekick. And now I just realized this was almost 30 years ago and I feel so old.
whawkins4 | 2 months ago
Nah. Just certain people.
ILikeNeurons | 2 months ago
Poe's law, obviously.
whawkins4 | 2 months ago
Poe’s Law only applies to people who don’t understand sarcasm.
EuenovAyabayya | 2 months ago
In essence all you really have to pass initially is a credit check, and a criminal background check within a few days to weeks of that. Anything else goes into a queue that can take months.
RevWaldo | 2 months ago
The same link without all the Google tracking hoosamafudge.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/01/ice-recruitment-minneapolis-shooting.html
wolfgenius | 2 months ago
We should push for left wing orgs to apply then, right? Then we can step in as official authorities to stop this nonsense ourselves
hardleft121 | 2 months ago
"a license to brutalize the country’s most vulnerable residents without consequence" <- lol
Extrapolates_Wildly | 2 months ago
TBF “they didn’t discriminate based on my political beliefs” would normally be a positive thing, but yeah it probably wasn’t that.
Bituulzman | 2 months ago
People are dropping quotes, but this is the part that surprised me:
>Somehow, despite never submitting any of the paperwork they sent me—not the background check or identification info, not the domestic violence affidavit, none of it—ICE had apparently offered me a job.
She had a whole "to do" checklist to complete following her tentative employment offer (which was given after her preliminary attendance and interview at the expo), she just ignored all of it, and the onboarding still went ahead without her.
deaconxblues | 2 months ago
Jebus. It’s almost shocking, but the behavior of this admin is so beyond the pale that it’s not. Just another day in Crazyland.
beams13 | 2 months ago
It's as if the background checks aren't actually happening if they are approved and hired that quickly.
brianatlarge | 2 months ago
They probably DOGE’d the people doing the background checks.
atothez | 2 months ago
They want recruits who don't do paperwork.
Bituulzman | 2 months ago
And ignore norms maybe.
NativeMasshole | 2 months ago
Makes me wonder how easy it is to get that $50k signing bonus and then just never show up. It's doubly disturbing that we're offering that much of a cash incentive from a department that isn't even doing basic onboarding paperwork.
kylco | 2 months ago
From what I understand it's a "signing bonus" that arrives when you've been with the agency for five years or some other cure period.
They're almost certainly never going to pay it, or if they do, implementation is going to be so sloppy and the paperwork (as evidenced by this article) so threadbare that it will be rife with fraud.
Asiriya | 2 months ago
I mean, will they even complete the offboarding if the onboarding was never done? Can you sit in the system and collect pay if you just never show up?
PM_ME__YOUR_HOOTERS | 2 months ago
Its impossible to get by design, they set it 5 years out because they know either the republicans will get voted out and the program will get dismantled or that the facists will succeed and claim mission complete in 2028 and downsize all the ~~idiots~~ agents out onto the street
weluckyfew | 2 months ago
Slight devil's advocate (and this regime is certainly the devil) - maybe they offered the job because they need their recruitment numbers, but then after if you fail your background check they yank the offer.
I know people who have been "hired" for jobs but then they have to wait for drug test/background check before they start the job.
Their hiring practices are clearly awful, just not convinced this is an example of it
wolfgenius | 2 months ago
Andor really hit the nail on the f*cking head, huh?
Sea_Rate5579 | 2 months ago
After reading this, I have a theory that some recruiters may be fudging the paperwork to meet new hire quotas by doing stuff like what happened to the author - recruiters are pushing through “abandoned” applications as far as they can so they can tell their superiors that there totally are a bunch of recruits ready to start - even if the real number that physically show up to training is far smaller.
But given ICE’s huge budget increase, I also wonder if there’s embezzlement shenanigans going on; like recruiters are submitting fraudulent paperwork and “hiring” people just to skim off of payroll somehow…
pillbinge | 2 months ago
It's ironic because checking paperwork is what necessitate immigration enforcement in the first place and precisely what they need to do to actually do it.
frostysauce | 2 months ago
Yeah, and part of that checklist was PROOF OF ID!
kirbyderwood | 2 months ago
They offered the job because, as the article stated, the job fair was nearly empty. They didn't have enough serious applicants, so they offered it out of desperation.
kabow94 | 2 months ago
Job requirement: Breathe air
stanthemanchan | 2 months ago
>when I showed up at 9 a.m., the flood was notably absent: there was no line to check in and no line to go through security. I walked down nearly empty hallways, past a nearly empty drug testing station, and into the event proper, where a man directed me to a line to wait in for an interview. I took my spot at the end; there were only six people ahead of me.
This part gives me a little bit of hope. Not a lot of people signing up.
>And if they’re not going to screen me out, what hope is there of figuring out which recruit might one day turn into a trigger-happy agent who would forget that law enforcement officers are trained not to stand in front of vehicles, get jumpy, and shoot a 37-year-old woman to death on the streets of Minneapolis?
I keep seeing this framing and I don't think it's the right argument. The agent who shot Renee Good was a veteran with 10 years of field experience at ICE. He was a team leader who was responsible for training other people. The problem is not training or lax screening for new recruits. The problem is the whole agency itself is bad from the top down and the inside out. Renee Good wasn't shot because of bad training. The agent who shot her three times in the head called her a "fucking bitch" after he shot her. Other agents in the days since then have yelled at women protesters "haven't you learned your lesson yet?" and threatened unarmed citizens with deadly firearms. Two more civilians were shot the next day.
MontEcola | 2 months ago
Two problems can exist at the same time. And this makes the worse than it seems become real.
Bring in recruits who are not screened and put them in training with a monster.
stanthemanchan | 2 months ago
Note that I'm not saying that the lack of screening isn't a problem. It absolutely is bad that a lot of very fucked up people are being given a badge and a gun and let loose on civilians. However I'm also seeing some Democratic politicians saying that they will not agree to give more funding to ICE unless there is better training. They shouldn't be agreeing to give more funding to ICE at all, ever.
Outsider-Trading | 2 months ago
> They shouldn't be agreeing to give more funding to ICE at all, ever.
You don't even want well-trained immigration enforcement? You just want none at all?
stanthemanchan | 2 months ago
They aren't functioning as immigration enforcement. They are an unlawful paramilitary terror squad for the President. They are harassing and detaining more and more US citizens simply because they didn't have their ID on them. They are focusing on non-white civilians, including Native Americans. Do you even understand how fucked up it is to have armed agents on street corners demanding to see ID from random passersby? That is literally what is happening in Minnesota right now. If the President can do this in one state he can do it anywhere in your country.
https://ictnews.org/news/north-central-bureau/four-oglala-detainees-located-three-still-in-ice-custody/
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/us/ice-videos-minnesota-trump-immigration.html?smtyp=cur&smid=bsky-nytimes
https://abc7.com/post/federal-agents-allegedly-drive-off-baby-car-father-detained-cypress-park-raid/18140560/
https://newrepublic.com/post/205105/minneapolis-pastor-ice-white-fun
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/12/st-paul-ice-activity/?utm_sf_cserv_ref=did%3Aplc%3Ajszy2fvtipwprnjhe7pxytfv&utm_sf_post_ref=650760245
mrkrinkle773 | 2 months ago
Not to mention the admins blatantly racist statements about immigrants and encouragement of violent enforcement puts extra stress on the agents and guaranteed they would clash with the public when trying to do the job.
elmonoenano | 2 months ago
I'm not sure what recruiting is like right now, but it seems to be going somewhat okay. But a big part of the "recruitment" effort is about handing out contracts to GOP donors. During the first Trump admin, they gave out a contract to Accenture and paid them $297 million to hire new CBP agents and they only ended up with something like 30 new agents. The contract was so bad and at the time there was some pretense that the GOP cared about corruption that they had to cancel it.
But, I'm pretty sure a large amount of the DHS budget just disappears into private contractor hands.
WillBottomForBanana | 2 months ago
"This part gives me a little bit of hope. Not a lot of people signing up."
/shrug. Crash the economy some more.
ILikeNeurons | 2 months ago
ICE agents had less training than the police even before their training was cut in half.
Better ICE training could have prevented this particular shooting.
That said, there are obviously other issues with ICE.
LittleMsSavoirFaire | 2 months ago
I really don't see how better training prevents a guy who wants to cause harm from causing harm. We need screenings for that
spudmarsupial | 2 months ago
Most of their recruits were probably still in bed. She should have gone back at 3pm to do a headcount.
chosenandfrozen | 2 months ago
It sounds like she was there for a good chunk of the day.
FrankieLovie | 2 months ago
they hired 12,000 people in 2025, where the total number of ice agents was 10k, so over doubled in one year
weluckyfew | 2 months ago
Exactly what the regimen wants - citizens and law enforcement hating each other
gregcm1 | 2 months ago
Some highlights from the article:
"Many of ICE’s critics worry that the agency is hoovering up pro-Trump thugs—Jan. 6 insurrectionists, white nationalists, etc.—for a domestic security force loyal to the president. The truth, my experience suggests, is perhaps even scarier: ICE’s recruitment push is so sloppy that the administration effectively has no idea who’s joining the agency’s ranks."
"I couldn’t tell whether there were more white or Hispanic people waiting for their email, but it was close."
"What are we to make of all this? To be clear, I barely applied to ICE. I skipped the steps of the application process that would have clued the agency in on my lack of fitness for the position. I made no effort to hide my public loathing of the agency, what it stands for, and the administration that runs it. And they offered me the job anyway."
ericomplex | 2 months ago
Frankly, I figure this is about what everyone figured was going on with their hiring practices. The Trump admin, and even just Trump himself have proven themselves to be wholly incompetent when it comes to hiring anyone and the idea of background checks probably has been totally waved away due to them only caring if the person applying is in favor of Trump’s agenda.
This is one of the biggest problems with the quasi-fascistic populism that the GOP has fallen into, you can’t hire “the best people” when your primary hiring objective is only bringing in those who agree with or would otherwise overlook your agenda for personal gain.
It’s one of the main reasons that governments that fall into such a trap end up failing over time. They just breed incompetence via this willful negligence for objectivity. So long as the public can easily see the emperor is wearing no clothes, the only people they will attract and hire are those who express they are willfully blind and no other qualification is necessary.
Asiriya | 2 months ago
But you don't need competence when the goal is oppression and your enforcers are at least smart enough to coordinate and shoot.
Iran hasn't fallen apart yet, it's had way longer to fall foul of anti-intellectualism. Maybe they're more intelligent than Trump and co, I doubt they're any more intelligent than Vance and his backers though.
Wiggles69 | 2 months ago
Why aren't y'all applying en-mass, getting hired and then just not showing up?
It's a great sap on their resources since they will have to keep spending resources on recruitment. Plus they're so incompetent there's a slim chance they don't remember to get your signing bonus back.
Asiriya | 2 months ago
I wonder what happens if I sign up, not in the US...
wilkinsk | 2 months ago
"What I actually saw was so implausible, so impossible, that at first I did not understand what I was looking at.
Somehow, despite never submitting any of the paperwork they sent me—not the background check or identification info, not the domestic violence affidavit, none of it—ICE had apparently offered me a job."
Well... That's interesting for mutlipe reasons.
Jester-Kat-Kire | 2 months ago
I mean... This is the spider man clip of "no way it would be this easy" "It was that easy."
I'm... Very surprised, and don't know what to make of this.
weirdunclejessie | 2 months ago
Saw someone on another anti ICE post advocating for everyone interested in resistance to get a copy of the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. It outlines many non-violent forms of resistance that were used to against fascists in Europe. Many tactics still usable.
Free below on Gutenberg.org
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26184/pg26184-images.html
Save a pdf copy or print. We should all have this
Darktyde | 2 months ago
You know how there are reddit posts about people who get remote jobs and do basically no work for their paycheck? What this article describes sounds a lot like it would be pretty easy to become an ICE officer on paper and collect a signing bonus and paychecks without actually doing any work.
The other possibility is that they’re just pretty much accepting all applications on paper, as a “projection of strength.” It sounds a lot better to the base and for intimidation purposes for them to claim they hired 12,000 new agents last year, even if thousands of those had the same experience as the writer of this article and don’t actually work for ICE but there’s a government database somewhere that says they do to juice the numbers.
iwannalynch | 2 months ago
> become an ICE officer on paper and collect a signing bonus and paychecks without actually doing any work.
Seriously, this is a sign guys. Sign up, take the bonus, and be the most incompetent ICE agent you can be. Fumble everything. Drive your car repeatedly into the curb. Accidentally ~~taste~~ tase your partner.
DrugOfGods | 2 months ago
I mean... Depends on the partner.
iwannalynch | 2 months ago
Oops haha
eleniel82 | 2 months ago
More anti-fascists should join ICE and infiltrate the system from within, if their qualifying barriers are so low. It’s an opportunity.
m00kery | 2 months ago
What happens if you get the bonus then go awol
Desperate-Boot-500 | 2 months ago
I just want to know are they doing hair follicle test or not ?
OddResearcher1081 | 2 months ago
How many murderers, rapists and pedos did ICE hire? These people will be given access to women and children who are kidnapped. This is the summation of this writer. Right now in St Paul-Minnesota, ICE outnumbers local police by perhaps 2-1. They are saying every resident in the south part of the city cannot avoid ICE. When putting these 2 observations together, I would say do not leave your home if you are a younger female with kids. You might be targeted by unvetted criminals wearing masks.
Now Trump is threatening NYC. NYC has a police force the size of a large army. Will Trump employ sonic weapons? Sleuths need to cross reference recent leak of ICE identities with criminal databases, including J’6ers, Proud Boys etc. This infiltration by criminals into ICE could give Blue cities like NY the moral right to openly oppose ICE. I bet NY also has sonic weapons etc. If they organize they could deter attack by ICE.
toolisthebestbandevr | 2 months ago
Wow this is actually terrifying.