Who Joins ICE?

I know folks here hate this kind of anthropology, but I find it extraordinarily valuable:

ICE’s pitch for meaning and purpose seemed to draw in many of the applicants I met. Some were military veterans with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan who told me they longed for the camaraderie and sense of belonging they once had. Others said they were bored, or wanted to serve the country, or fill a hole in their life left by a failed marriage or the creeping regrets they felt in middle age after screwing up in their 20s.

Chris Freese, 34, who works in elevator repair, told me he wished he had joined the military after high school like his brother, who became an explosives expert in the Army. “I’ll do anything to help secure the country,” said Freese, who wore a T-shirt and cap emblazoned with the American flag, but had forgotten to bring his résumé. “If I don’t make it this time, I’ll keep trying,” he told me.

The Trump administration plans to hire, train, and deploy 10,000 new ICE officers by the beginning of next year, a frantic pace that would nearly triple the current workforce. The Department of Homeland Security is set to spend more than $40 million in the next several months on ICE recruitment, even as the department says it’s already received 130,000 applications. ICE had advertised same-day offers to qualified candidates, especially those with prior military service or law-enforcement experience, and a $50,000 bonus to sweeten the pot. In the parking lot were license plates from New Mexico, Tennessee, and as far away as New Jersey. Hundreds of applicants began lining up before the doors opened at 8 a.m., many in suits, with résumés and diplomas in hand.

A small group of protesters began to gather across the roadway, yelling “Shame!” and “Hey hey, ho ho, ICE has got to go!,” but attendees in line mostly turned away.

Wandering the expo felt like walking through the set of a game show, a kind of speed dating for deportation jobs: After an on-the-spot interview, some got offers immediately and were sent to provide urine samples for drug testing, while others had to sit and wait for their name to be called.

Queue up “Who Goes Nazi?” but not really, because of course Who Goes Nazi is about JD Vance and Marco Rubio and not about the people who make decisions to join and fill out the ranks of ICE or the Brownshirts or the People’s Armed Police or the Republican Guard. How do people decide to take a job in which they must take pride in the achievement of brutalizing their fellows? It’s a question that I have not found a satisfactory answer for, although I suppose that there’s quite a lot of Accidental Guerilla to all of it.