Whistleblower Says ICE Put Job Offers Ahead Of Fingerprints

WASHINGTON—Immigration and Customs Enforcement made final job offers before completing fingerprints, identity verification and credit checks for some applicants, according to a newly released whistleblower complaint, proving the agency can move swiftly when the border between applicant and officer becomes inconvenient.

The warning came from a unit chief in ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, where more than 100 employees evaluated thousands of applicants during the administration’s hiring surge. The official said backlogs collided with pressure to add officers for President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign, producing systemic vetting breakdowns and risks of infiltration, foreign influence and insider threats.

ICE announced in January that it had hired 12,000 officers in less than a year, supported by $75 billion from Congress for arrests and deportations. Some applicants received tentative selection letters after interviews, and the agency acknowledged that some began training before their full background investigations were complete. Speed remained measurable even when suitability did not.

The whistleblower asked the Homeland Security inspector general to investigate, suspend the practices, review recent hires and identify possible insider threats. The inspector general had already announced reviews of ICE hiring, training and security clearances. ICE said its professional-responsibility office evaluates all available information for every applicant and noted that the whistleblower no longer works there, which efficiently updates the personnel count.

The country was promised an enforcement force large enough to locate people whose papers were not in order. It received one built quickly enough that the government is now being asked to check its own.