‘Complete Clown Show’: The Forums Where ICE Agents Complain About Their Jobs

Users claiming to be current

and former ICE agents are using online forums

to complain about their colleagues, their jobs,

and the agency's leadership.

I reviewed dozens of posts made on a forum

with over 5,000 members claiming to be current

and former ICE and CBP officers,

and also on a separate forum for serving

and ex Homeland Security Investigations officers.

Both forums contain posts dating back over a decade.

In posts we reviewed, users complain of long working hours,

limited overtime pay, incompetent leadership,

and poorly-trained new recruits.

On January 19, after the killing of Renee Good,

but before the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis,

one user started a thread

with the title, Ready to Resign. Had Enough Stress.

A user who joined the forum more than 10 years ago added,

This agency has managed to turn a righteous mission

into a complete clown show.

On the forum for HSI officers, the division within ICE

where agents are normally responsible

for investigating crimes like terrorism

and human trafficking, users discuss their discomfort

with mass deportation efforts

and the way federal agents have interacted with protestors

and their working conditions as well.

Like the ICE forum, the shootings of Good and Pretti

led to a spate of intense posts.

A poster who identified themselves as a retired agent

wrote, Yet another justified fatal shooting.

They all carried gun belts with vests

and 9,000 pieces of equipment on them,

and the best they can do is shoot a guy in the back.

Even before the killings however,

forum members questioned why HSI was being used

to carry out immigration enforcement,

pulling officers away from urgent case work.

One user wrote quote, They could be doing these

crime surges for literally any type of

federal criminal investigations,

drugs, child exploitation, gangs, et cetera,

and it would be a much better use of resources.

Not only that, our reputations would still be intact.

People do not need to show proof

of their employment in these forums,

and the platform doesn't appear to be heavily moderated.

Though WIRED has not confirmed the individual identities

of some of these users, posters share details

that likely would only be known

to those intimately familiar with the job.

You can read the full accounts at WIRED.com

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