DHS Announces Its Waving Age Requirements For ICE Agents And ‘Taking Father/Son Bonding To A Whole New Level’
At this point, it’s clear that the Trump administration takes great joy in its cruelty — almost as much as it takes joy in its spreading of lies and propaganda.
On Wednesday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is waiving age limits for new applicants, and in doing so, “We’re taking father/son bonding to a whole new level.”
That’s right, y’all, according to the Economic Times, the DHS launched an aggressive ICE recruitment campaign late last month, and it includes the slogan “America Needs You,” and posters that sell the idea of increasing ICE’s personnel numbers by waving all age restrictions as an opportunity for “father/son bonding,” presumably meaning the federal government imagines fathers with their teenagers engaging in activities like fishing and hunting, or in this case — chasing down human beings, detaining them with no guarantee of due process, upending their lives, and deporting them to countries they may or may not be safe at or even familiar with.
“We’ve removed any of the age barriers,” Noem said in an interview with FOX & Friends on Wednesday. “We no longer have a cap on how old you can be, or sign up at age 18 and join
And, of course, Noem is sticking with the demonstrable lie that ICE is only targeting criminals.
Noem claimed in a press release that the change in age restrictions has been made “so even more patriots will qualify to join ICE in its mission to arrest murderers, pedophiles, gang members, rapists, and other criminal illegal aliens from America’s streets,” but the data has consistently shown that nearly half of ICE detainees either have no criminal record at all or have only been convicted of minor offenses, including traffic violations. According to Reuters, ICE’s own detention statistics showed the number of detainees who had no other criminal charges or convictions rose from about 860 in January to 7,800 in June. Last month, a federal judge determined that ICE agents were “indiscriminately” arresting people after targeting them via racial profiling.
That ruling came after a lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles by plaintiffs who alleged ICE was “flooding street corners, bus stops, parking lots, agricultural sites, day laborer corners, and other places,” and targeting people based on their skin color, accent, the language they spoke, or their occupation, which is exactly what ICE Director Tom Homan said they were allowed to do, and what White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller reportedly directed them to do.
Yet, despite these indisputable facts, at every turn, Noem has insisted that ICE agents are not employing these tactics and are only targeting criminals, and she has even snapped at reporters for suggesting otherwise.
As for the way President Donald Trump’s abysmal administration trivializes and even makes light of its dehumanizing war on migrants, last week, the White House posted from its official X account a parody Jet2 video showing real immigrants being arrested by real ICE to the tune of jovial music in a fake commercial.
On Tuesday, Trump himself ranted during a call with CNBC about how undocumented migrant farm workers might be allowed to stay in the U.S. because they work harder than “inner city” people and can do grueling work because they don’t have “bad backs” and won’t “die.”
Now, the administration is out here treating ICE like a wholesome “father/son bonding” facilitator — as the agency rips families apart, taking sons and daughters away from their fathers and mothers — and Noem is out here pitching ICE migrant hunting as a business suited for child labor.
This administration isn’t just comprised of people who make terrible polices — they are terrible human beings. And, again, the cruelty seems to be the point, and a thing they gleefully enjoy.
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