President Donald Trump has not fulfilled his promise to triple the number of deportation officers
Before Trump took office, there were around 5,800 deportation officers and immigration enforcement agents within a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a fiscal year 2016 budget request. Deportation officers enforce immigration laws by identifying, arresting, detaining and removing immigrants illegally in the country.
To fulfill this pledge, there would need to be more than 15,000 deportation officers on board. Trump hinted at that number when he signed an executive order five days after his inauguration in 2017, calling for the hiring of 10,000 additional immigration officers.
PolitiFact asked ICE for the current number of deportation officers. An agency spokesperson pointed to ICE's fiscal year 2019 end of year report, which said there were an estimated 5,300 deportation officers in the Enforcement and Removal Operations division (excluding supervisory and headquarters personnel.) A February 2020 report from the Congressional Research Service also said ICE had "roughly 5,300 deportation officers."
The number of ICE deportation officers is likely to fluctuate as people are hired or leave the workforce. For instance, an ICE web page last updated early April 2019 said the agency had more than 6,100 deportation officers. But as the end of year report indicates, that number has declined.
Overall, the size of the ICE agency has not increased substantially during Trump's presidency. A budget request for fiscal year 2017 said ICE in fiscal year 2016 had close to 20,000 full time employees, nearly 8,000 of them in the Enforcement and Removal Operations division. In fiscal year 2020, the agency employed close to 21,000 full time employees, around 8,300 in the Enforcement and Removal Operations division.
It's not something his administration has ignored altogether. Trump's budget requests have called for more funding for ICE deportation agents, but Congress hasn't appropriated full funding.
In a supplemental appropriations request for fiscal year 2017, the administration requested $76 million to build hiring capacity, but Congress did not provide funds specifically for the hiring called for in Trump's executive order, said a June 2018 U.S. Government Accountability Office report. The administration also requested about $186 million in fiscal year 2018 for 1,000 additional ICE law enforcement officers and agents and 606 support staff, but only received $15.7 million for 65 agents and 70 attorneys and support staff, the GAO report said.
The logistics of hiring 10,000 more people has also been challenging for ICE. A year after Trump's order, the agency reported not having a sufficient pool of candidates to fill existing vacancies plus the positions requested in Trump's order.
The June 2018 GAO report said ICE officials were ensuring procedures were in place "so that ICE is ready to begin hiring additional immigration officers and support staff if funds are appropriated." In January 2018, ICE issued a contract solicitation to find a company to help the agency with the hiring process, but ICE cancelled that solicitation in May 2018 due to lack of funding for hiring.
A November 2018 report from the Office of Inspector General within the Department of Homeland Security said the department was still preparing to hire the officers requested in Trump's executive order. According to that report, ICE at some point projected hiring 8,500 deportation officers and 1,500 Homeland Security Investigations agents over a four-year period. (ICE's Homeland Security Investigations agents focus on cross-border criminal activity, such as trade crimes, cybercrimes, and human trafficking.)
Trump's January 2017 executive order said the additional hiring of immigraton agents would be "to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations." Logistical challenges and lack of funding have hindered fulfillment of this promise. We rate it a Promise Broken.