ICE AI tool hiring malfunction sent recruits into field without proper training

AI Tool Reportedly Sent ICE Recruits Into the Field Without Proper Training

Immigration and Customs Enforcement deployed an unknown number of undertrained law enforcement officers into the field because the agency's artificial intelligence system for hiring wasn't functioning as intended, according to NBC News. Since even before taking office, President Trump vowed an unprecedented immigration crackdown. That included a hiring blitz at ICE, with a mandate to hire 10,000 new recruits by the end of 2025, thanks to the $75 billion over four years allocated to the agency via the Big Beautiful Bill. To speed up hiring, ICE began using an AI tool to categorize the resumes that were submitted. The applicants were separated into two groups: those with previous experience as a law enforcement officer were sent into an "LEO (Law Enforcement Officer) program" where they only had to go through four weeks of online training. Applicants with no prior experience were sent to an eight-week in-person course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia that included crucial instruction on things like immigration law and proper handling of a gun. Training used to be 20 weeks but was shortened recently to "cut redundancy and incorporate technology advancements," per the Washington Post. Now, an NBC News report reveals that the AI tool used to hire new agents misidentified applicants with no prior law enforcement experience and sent them to the shorter "LEO program" instead. The AI flagged anyone with the word "officer" in their resume as a law enforcement officer, including compliance officers or even applicants who mentioned their desire to become ICE officers. Two unnamed law enforcement officials told NBC that they weren't sure just how many officers were improperly trained and sent out to begin immigration arrests. But apparently, a majority of new applicants were flagged as law enforcement officers before the mistake was identified late last year. There's been significant backlash to the increasingly aggressive enforcement tactics used by ICE agents in their anti-immigrant crackdown that has targeted everyoneâ€"including immigrants both with and without documentation, and American citizens. Scrutiny reached a new peak after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. The agent who shot Good, according to NBC, had been with ICE for 10 years, so he would not have been subject to the AI screening. Amid this hiring surge, ICE has also been incorporating technology into its enforcement mechanisms. The agency has a contract with controversial Israeli spyware maker Paragon, whose technology has been used to spy on journalists and migrant rights activists abroad. The agency uses an AI system for mass surveillance on social media, and agents have access to apps that scan irises and attempt to identify immigration status through facial recognition. Department of Homeland Security also has its own AI chatbot called DHSChat, which was developed after Department employees experimented with commercial AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude. And in November, it was revealed that at least one ICE agent had used ChatGPT to compile a use-of-force report riddled with inconsistencies. The agent based the report solely on limited information and had ChatGPT make up the rest.

ICE's AI Tool Has Been a Complete Disaster

"They were using AI to scan resumes and found out a bunch of the people who were LEOs weren't LEOs." As headlines teem with stories of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers beating protestors, holding children hostage, and murdering people in cold blood, you might be wondering: who the hell hired these guys? As it turns out, AI played a huge role. According to NBC, when ICE identifies a recruit with prior law enforcement experience, it assigns them to its "Law Enforcement Officer Program." This is a four-week online course meant to streamline training for those already familiar with the legal aspects of the gig. Everyone else gets shipped off to ICE's Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia for an eight-week in-person academy. This more rigorous training includes courses in immigration law, gun handling, physical fitness exams, and more. Yet rather than assign a human to make that call, ICE's human resources department outsourced the task to an untested large language model (LLM). This AI system was supposed to scan new recruits' resumes in order to place them in one of the two programs; instead, it automatically flagged the "majority of new applicants" for the fast-track course regardless of their prior experience, officials familiar with the system told NBC. "They were using AI to scan resumes and found out a bunch of the people who were LEOs weren't LEOs," one official said. Basically, the AI model had approved any resume containing the word "officer" for the LEO program -- which opened the door to anyone from a "mall security officer" to those who simply wrote about their aspirations to become ICE officers to take the expedited training course. The exact number of inexperienced ICE recruits whisked into the fast lane is unknown. At this point, the agency is said to be actively reassessing its duty rosters to call new recruits back for additional training. The error was first noticed in "mid-fall," NBC reports, amidst a hiring surge in which ICE rushed to add some 10,000 officers to its ranks -- a quota imposed by the Trump administration. Back in October, MS Now reported that ICE was struggling to meet its hiring goals, even after dropping age requirements for new recruits. It all comes after ICE's deadliest year since 2004. Throughout 2025, 32 people died in the agency's custody, and more than 170 US citizens were detained against their will. Still, it's unlikely a few more weeks of training would have made much of a difference in those outcomes. As previous reporting has revealed, those responding to the Trump administration's fascistic recruiting ads aren't exactly the cream of the crop. During a December investigation into ICE's hiring standards, an agency official told the Daily Mail that in some cases, the recruits being sent out into the field can barely read, let alone understand complex immigration law. "We have people failing open-book tests and we have folks that can barely read or write English," an official said. "We even had a 469lb man sent to the academy whose own doctor certified him 'not at all fit' for any physical activity." The fact that these gung-ho recruits aren't being weeded out at the start is a horrifying indictment: either agency officials didn't think to double check the AI's work, or they didn't care to. Either way, the horrifying consequences are sure to continue as ICE's brutal crackdown on American cities rolls ahead.