ICE lifts age requirements for new federal officers: Noem

(NewsNation) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer enforce an age limit for new federal officers as a push to add 10,000 new officers continues.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Wednesday that the federal agency is removing the age cap for law enforcement, allowing qualified candidates to join without regard to age. The push for more officers comes as the White House has been looking for ICE to make more migrant arrests, with White House senior adviser Stephen Miller telling reporters repeatedly that he wanted to see ICE record 3,000 arrests per day.

However, in a court filing late last week, the Justice Department stated that neither ICE leadership nor its field offices have been directed to meet “any numerical quota or target for arrests, detentions, removals, field encounters or any other operational activities that ICE or its components undertake in the course of enforcing federal immigration law.”

Before Noem’s announcement on Wednesday, ICE reported on its website that applicants must be at least 21 years of age to apply. However, Noem said that applicants can be as young as 18 and that the agency had removed any maximum age for new applicants.

The filing stated that the 3,000 daily arrests figure originated from media reports and acknowledged that, although the quotes attributed to Miller may have been accurate, no such directive had been issued by ICE or DHS.

An estimated $46.5 billion of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” has been designated for the hiring and retention of at least 10,000 new ICE agents. The agency is offering a $50,000 signing bonus for new officers, who are also eligible for up to $60,000 in education cost reimbursements. However, the financial incentives being offered to applicants have drawn mixed reviews from local sheriffs, who have expressed concerns about members of their departments being poached by the federal government.

In an interview with Fox News, Noem expressed excitement over the removal of the age requirement, citing a rise in attacks on ICE officers during immigration enforcement operations around the country. She said that as of Wednesday, the agency had seen more than 80,000 applicants for ICE jobs. She called the response “overwhelming” while also praising the efforts of officers already on the job.

“They have continued to go out bravely and do their jobs and make sure that they’re upholding the rule of law,” Noem said in the televised interview.