The new ICE army

新冰军

Today, Explained

2026-01-22

26 分钟
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单集简介 ...

Trump wants to hire a slew of new ICE agents. He's targeting fans of NASCAR, UFC, video games and guns. This episode was produced by Danielle Hewitt and Peter Balonon-Rosen, edited by Jolie Myers, fact checked by Andrea López-Cruzado, engineered by Patrick Boyd and David Tatasciore, and hosted by Noel King. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Chicago. Photo by Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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单集文稿 ...

  • ICE recently undertook a nationwide surge aimed at hiring thousands of agents and summed up by these three lines at ICE.gov slash join.

  • America has been invaded by criminals and predators.

  • We need you to get them out.

  • You do not need an undergraduate degree.

  • The frenetic pace is raising some questions about how agents are being vetted.

  • A left-leaning freelance journalist named Laura Jadid said last week that she'd applied for a job at ICE and been accepted despite having been publicly critical of the agency in her reporting.

  • Not only did the drug test not seem to be a deal breaker,

  • I appeared to have been offered a final job offer.

  • The truth is, they're taking anyone with a pulse.

  • DHS called her allegation a lazy lie on X,

  • and Jadid replied with a screen grab that appeared to show she had reached the final offer stage.

  • Coming up on Today Explained, inside the chaos of ice recruiting,

  • edgelord memes, allegations of Nazi and white nationalist delusions, and zero apologies.

  • This is Today Explained.

  • I'm Noelle King with Drew Harwell.

  • Drew is a tech reporter for The Washington Post who recently got his hands on an internal ice document on hiring.

  • Drew, tell me what this document is and what's in it.

  • Yeah, so this is an internal...

  • confidential document that ICE officers spread to each other that outlines what they call their surge hiring recruiting strategy.

  • So it lays out a hundred million dollars in recruiting spending that they want to pour into social media advertising,