ICE plans to hire 5,000 agents to support Trump deportation campaign
Agency seeks to expand workforce by 17 percent amid reports of vetting backlogs.
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
ICE plans to hire as many as 5,000 new recruits, according to one report (Getty)
Photograph: The Independent (US) (embedded from source)
What this story says
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to hire 5,000 new agents by the end of the year.
- The hires are intended to support President Trump's deportation campaign.
- The agency has received significant funding from Congress.
- Sources told The New York Times that the agency wants to grow its workforce by 17 percent.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 7 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 1 of the 8 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .
Trust
60/100
Craft
65/100
Hype
45/100
8 sources · methodology
Thin on the right so far
Only 2 of the 7 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to hire as many as 5,000 new personnel by the end of the year. These new hires are intended to support President Trump's deportation campaign. The agency has received substantial funding from Congress to support its operations. Sources familiar with the plans told The New York Times that the agency aims to increase its workforce by 17 percent, with the majority of new positions being deportation officers.
Disagreement on vetting backlogs
Sources told The New York Times that ICE is currently dealing with a significant backlog in vetting recent hires, with nearly 7,500 recruits awaiting background checks. These recruits are reportedly only able to work in a limited capacity. However, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told The Times that the proposed 5,000 new hires are unrelated to previous recruitment efforts and that the agency would maintain stringent standards.
What the coverage left out
None of the left-rated or right-rated reports mentioned the figure of 49,571 arrests made by ICE in July, as reported by The Associated Press and cited by The Independent. The right-rated digest did not mention the reported vetting backlog or the internal memo warning about lowered standards.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 3 times, most recently on 30 Sept 2026, 10:45, and will add the sides that appear.
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
5 rated outlets
- The left-rated reports focused on the planned hiring surge and its connection to President Trump's deportation campaign. The Independent and washingtonsun.com, in their full reports, highlighted that the hires are intended to bolster Trump's deportation efforts and that most recruits will be deportation officers. Joe.My.God. used the term 'thugs' in its headline to describe the new hires. Multiple reports, including The Independent and washingtonsun.com, noted that the expansion comes as thousands of earlier recruits await background checks. The Independent also included a quote from former ICE chief of staff Deborah Fleischaker stating, 'Adequately vetting people takes time. It’s more important to get it right than do it fast.' The Independent also reported on an internal memo warning of 'unprecedented lowering of standards' and a DHS spokesperson's assertion that the new hires are an 'outgrowth' of new funding.
Centre
0 rated outlets
No outlet rated centre has run this story so far. We are still checking, and will say plainly if that does not change.
Right
2 rated outlets
- Globo's digest stated that ICE is preparing for a new round of recruitments to support President Trump's deportation campaign, with the goal of hiring 5,000 new employees by the end of the year.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover ICE plans to hire 5,000 agents to support Trump deportation campaign?
- Of the 7 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 71% are rated left, 0% are rated centre, 29% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 8. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is ICE plans to hire 5,000 agents to support Trump deportation campaign left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 7 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of ICE plans to hire 5,000 agents to support Trump deportation campaign biased?
- ICE plans to hire 5,000 agents to support Trump deportation campaign is one event reported by 8 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting ICE plans to hire 5,000 agents to support Trump deportation campaign?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered ICE plans to hire 5,000 agents to support Trump deportation campaign?
- 8 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- How many new agents does ICE plan to hire?
- Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to hire 5,000 new agents by the end of the year. This expansion aims to increase the agency's workforce by approximately 17 percent.
- What is the purpose of the new hires?
- The new hires are intended to support President Trump's deportation campaign. The majority of the new positions will be for deportation officers tasked with field arrests and managing deportation cases.
- Are there concerns about the hiring process?
- Yes, sources told The New York Times that ICE is facing a backlog in vetting recent hires, with thousands awaiting background checks. This raises questions about how the agency can meet its hiring goal without compromising standards.
Read it at the source
8 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
5- ICE wants to hire another 5,000 new agents to help deport more migrants (opens The Independent (US) in a new tab)
The Independent (US) — is The Independent (US) biased? Our profile of this outlet
- ICE wants to hire another 5,000 new agents to help deport more migrants (opens The Independent in a new tab)
The Independent — is The Independent biased? Our profile of this outlet
- ICE to Launch Another 5,000-Person Recruitment Surge This Year (opens washingtonsun.com in a new tab)
washingtonsun.com — is washingtonsun.com biased? Our profile of this outlet
- ICE To Hire 5000 New Thugs In Deportations Push (opens Joe.My.God. in a new tab)
Joe.My.God. — is Joe.My.God. biased? Our profile of this outlet
- ICE plans 5,000 new hires to help with deportation drive (opens The Seattle Times in a new tab)
The Seattle Times — is The Seattle Times biased? Our profile of this outlet
Centre
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Right
2Not rated
1How did this read?
About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.
