Politics

President Donald Trump’s deportation army is growing by the day, and a shocking number of its foot soldiers don’t even work for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The vast majority, in fact, come from other law enforcement agencies.

In January, the Trump administration started deputizing Justice Department officers to work for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, which focuses on mass deportations. (A second ICE division, Homeland Security Investigations, investigates child exploitation and weapons trafficking, among other transnational crimes.) ERO recruits from other sources, too, including HSI and local police departments.

According to ICE’s website, ERO has more than 6,100 deportation officers. But as of August, per the Cato Institute, it was receiving support from about 42,000 non-ERO personnel, including roughly 28,000 federal officials and more than 13,000 state and local ones.