When the Trump administration rolled out its big ICE recruitment drive last year, the agency looked to hire the best of the best. ICE welcomed “personnel who aspire to the highest standards of performance” to apply, and said that “deportation officers and special agents must be in excellent physical condition, able to tolerate environmental stresses.” Recruiting materials with blatant white nationalist overtones invited new recruits to “protect your homeland” and “defend your culture.”
The implication of all of this was clear: The administration wanted strong, hearty, athletic super-soldiers who are ready to chase immigrants through the streets of American cities.
What the administration actually got was somewhat… underwhelming. Plenty of the recruits weren’t able to meet basic fitness qualifications, so much so that ICE had to lower its standards. So while the Department of Defense is embracing a new “fit—not fat” mantra, it doesn’t look like that necessarily extends to our nation’s masked immigration police.
Thanks to all this, we’re now getting acquainted with a new type of viral video: the ICE agent having an oopsie. As they deploy to an increasing number of American cities—Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Washington DC—agents are struggling with some of the job’s more strenuous physical requirements—those “environmental stresses” that recruiting materials warned about.
Videos show agents tripping over curbs, grass, and their own feet. Agents have been plagued by cramps and their own gear. At least one agent even dropped his gun during a very light jog. Up north in Minnesota, where “Operation Metro Surge” is in full swing, ICE is having a tough time staying upright on the ice. And in one instance caught on video, no fewer than 11 agents ran around in circles trying—and failing—to catch a single individual on a bicycle just a few feet away.
Nobody promised that occupying American cities, harassing locals, and marauding through the streets would be easy. But this is the job these guys signed up for.
Home of the Brave is an initiative dedicated to exposing this administration’s corruption, cruelty, and lawlessness.
