Written by Ted Hisson, Tim Reed and Nicole Janine Johnson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, has become the driving force for his comprehensive suppression of immigrants, supported by record financing and new written lines to make raids, but employees compete with long hours and increase general anger for arrests.
These internal pressures affect. Two former former and nine ex -officials at ICE Reuters have told the agency that the agency is wrestling with exhaustion and frustration among employees, as the agents are struggling to keep pace with the agenda of aggressive enforcement of the administration.
The agency launched an employment campaign to relieve stress by employing thousands of new officers as soon as possible, but this process is likely to take months or years to play.
All those interviewed by Reuters supported the enforcement of immigration in principle. But they criticized the push of the Trump administration to the high daily detention classes that led to the detention of thousands of individuals who do not have a criminal record, as well as the owners of green cards in the long term, others with legal visas, and even some American citizens.
Most of the current and former ice officials requested not to be identified due to concerns about revenge themselves or former colleagues.
The Americans were immersed in pictures on social media from convincing agents often in manual tactical equipment in the streets of the neighborhoods, in work sites, foreign schools, churches, courts, and corridors. Videos of some viral arrests have become a general anger over tactics.
Under Trump, the average daily arrests by the agency of 21,000 people increased, increasing more than 250 % in June compared to the previous year, despite the decrease in daily detention rates in July.
Trump said he wanted to deport the “worst than the worst”, but ice characters show a rise in non -criminals.
Ice arrest of people who have no charges or other condemnation increased exceeding immigration violations during the first six months of Trump in office to 221 people per day, from 80 people per day during the same period under the leadership of former President Joe Biden last year, according to the agency data obtained by the deportation data project at the University of California, Berkeley, College of Law.
Figures indicate that about 69 % of the migration arrests during the Trump era were people with a criminal condemnation or suspended charge.
Two former officials and former officials said that some of the ice investigators feel frustrated that hundreds of ICE investigative dealerships, who usually focus on serious crimes such as human trafficking and across national gangs, have been resetting to enforce routine immigration.
In an interview with Reuters, Tom Human Trump admitted that long hours and re -appointing specialized clients had thwarted some ice, but Trump’s announcement on January 20 of a national emergency about illegal immigration justifies this.
“There are some employees who prefer to conduct other types of investigations, I get it, but the president has declared a national emergency,” Human said.
Human, who spent three decades in the immigration application and joined ICE at its beginning in 2003, said the long hours should reduce the employment of new ice employees.
“I think the morale is good. I think the morale will improve while bringing more resources,” he said.
Five Ice officials said that the other stress factor for senior officials is the constant threat to remove him due to the failure to arrest him, which confirms through multiple changes in leadership in ICE since Trump took office in January.
In response to the request to comment, a senior official in the US Department of Internal Security, the agency reduced the parents from ICE, the concerns about morale, saying that the officers were more annoying because of their targeting in the attacks, as well as criticism from the Democrats.
A senior official said that ICE employees “are excited to be able to take their jobs again” after they were restricted during the Biden era.
Intense pressure
In the midst of complaints, the current and former Ice officials said, the request from the White House to the home to increase the numbers of migration sharply to about 3000 a day, and 10 times the daily detention rate last year under Trump’s Democratic predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
In some cases, the raid officers went into wrong addresses after the expected clients who relied on them artificial intelligenceIncreasing the chances of picking the wrong person or an officer is at risk, according to one of the former officials.
The current official said: “The demands they put on us were unrealistic. This was not done in a safe way or the way to make us more successful.”
During the recent raids in many American cities, the disguised ice agents by angry populations who demanded the definition of themselves and chasing them from the neighborhoods.
“In many societies, they do not look positively for the work they are doing. So I am sure that this is stressful for them and their families,” said Kerry Doyle, a former legal advisor at ICE.
ICE also faced a violent reaction during the Trump presidency 2017-2021, when activists and some Democrats “cancel the ice” made a massive cry, but the enforcement of the most aggressive agency in recent months pushed it to the spotlight.
The Trump rating for general approval of immigration fell to 43 % in a Reuters/Ipsus poll in August from a 50 % increase in March, when Americans took an increasing look at his heavy tactics against immigrants.
This opinion was partially formed through news reports about the arrest of students on the campus or their way to sports practice, where parents are held while the children are dropped at school, and the ice officers break the windows and withdraw people from cars, men are surrounded and reside while waiting at bus stations or home warehouses to travel to work.
A former ice official at the beginning of the administration said, many former colleagues told him that they are happy that “the handcuffs are suspended.”
But after several months, he said, they were “drowned” with the numbers of detention demanded by the administration.
“They prefer to return to concentrated targeting,” he said. “They used to be able to say:” We are arrested by criminals. “
Employment
The Pack -backed spending package, which was approved by the US conference in July, gave more funds than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined – $ 75 billion over more than four years – including money that holds at least 100,000 migrants at any time.
The Trump administration has launched a strong employment campaign at the back of the new financing to achieve its goal of employing 10,000 Ice officers over the next four years.
Using war stickers and slogans such as “American Feeds You”, ICE has launched a very unusual media raid for a government agency, and ads runs on social media platforms such as Instagram and YouTube.
Internal Security said that more than 115,000 “American national” applied for jobs with ICE, although it did not say during the time period.
Ice employment is similar to an increase similar to border patrol agents aboard the plane in the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century, which critics say increased corruption and misconduct in its ranks.
When asked about the risk of bringing people less qualified in the rush to the employees, Human said that the ice should choose “quality on the quantity”.
“The officers still need to conduct investigations into the background,” Human said. “They still need to examine them, and they still need to make sure to go to the academy,”
(TED Hisson, Tim Reed, Nicole Johnson, Nicole Johnson, participated in the coverage by Marisa Taylor, Megabette Bell, Benjamin Kelleman and Crystina Cook; Ross Colvin Road Nickel Roses)