Trump and MAGA are making this key federal agency 'miserable' — and it’s only getting worse

10 July

FBI agents walk as protesters block U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel from entering a building housing an immigration court amid federal immigration sweeps in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., June 16, 2025. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

The Trump Administration, with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is pushing mass layoffs at a variety of federal government agencies — from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to the National Weather Service (NWS). And President Donald Trump is toying with the idea of eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) altogether.

But one agency that President Donald Trump clearly isn't defunding is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Trump's "big, beautiful bill," which he signed into law over the 4th of July Weekend, includes $178 billion for immigration enforcement over the next decade — with much of that money going to ICE, which will become the largest law enforcement agency in the United States.

But the fact that ICE is receiving a great deal of funding doesn't necessarily mean that its employees are happy.

In an article published on July 10, The Atlantic's Nick Miroff explains why many ICE employees are "miserable" — funding and all.

"ICE occupies an exalted place in President Donald Trump's hierarchy of law enforcement," Miroff explains. "He praises the bravery and fortitude of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers — 'the toughest people you'll ever meet,' he says — and depicts them as heroes in the central plot of his presidency, helping him rescue the country from an invasion of gang members and mental patients. The 20,000 ICE employees are the unflinching men and women who will restore order. They're the Untouchables in his MAGA crime drama. The reality of Trump's mass-deportation campaign is far less glamorous."

Miroff continues, "Officers and agents have spent much of the past five months clocking weekends and waking up at 4 a.m. for predawn raids. Their top leaders have been ousted or demoted, and their supervisors — themselves under threat of being fired —are pressuring them to make more and more arrests to meet quotas set by the Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Having insisted for years that capturing criminals is its priority, ICE is now shelving major criminal investigations to prioritize civil immigration arrests, grabbing asylum seekers at their courthouse hearings, handcuffing mothers as their U.S.-citizen children cry, chasing day laborers through Home Depot parking lots. As angry onlookers attempt to shame ICE officers with obscenities, and activists try to dox them, officers are retreating further behind masks and tactical gear."

An ICE official, interviewed on condition of anonymity, described ICE Agents' jobs as "mission impossible" and told Miroff, "It's miserable."

"I recently spoke with a dozen current and former ICE agents and officers about morale at the agency since Trump took office," Miroff reports. "Most spoke on the condition of anonymity, for fear of losing their job or being subjected to a polygraph exam….. Some ICE employees believe that the shift in priorities is driven by a political preoccupation with deportation numbers rather than keeping communities safe. "

The agents, according to Miroff, expressed "frustration" and "described a workforce on edge."

One long-time ICE agent believes the Trump Administration's priorities are wrong-headed, telling Miroff, "No drug cases, no human trafficking, no child exploitation. It's infuriating.”

Nick Miroff's full report for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

From Your Site Articles