ICE Agents Allowed to 'Use Deadly Force When Necessary', Job Listing Reveals

The description of a new listing for a position with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has revealed that the agency is permitted to use deadly force "when necessary".

A job listing for an ICE Criminal Investigator was posted to the USAJOBS website earlier this month.

The agency is seeking an individual who can "conduct and coordinate high-level comprehensive investigations involving individuals, groups, or large organizations operating at a local, national, or international level, use electronic surveillance, interviews, polygraph examination, and physical surveillance to obtain evidence in investigative cases, make arrests, confront multiple suspects, secure scenes sometimes under potentially dangerous and hazardous environments, take part in securing signed statements, affidavits, and documentary evidence for inclusion in reports or case records and prepare sworn testimony on behalf of the government in criminal and federal grand jury cases."

The listing also logs various conditions for employment in the section below duties, one of which mentions the use of deadly force.

"ICE Criminal Investigators may use deadly force when necessary, in accordance with the law and agency policy," reads condition number 15.

This condition is particularly controversial considering the fact that deaths in ICE custody have almost doubled this year from last year, with 10 deaths occurring in detention facilities since just January.

With 10 deaths occurring in just half the year, the agency under the Trump administration is on track to double the number of deaths that occurred in custody last year, with 12 detainees dying over the course of 2024.

"ICE has failed to provide adequate — even basic — medical and mental health care and ensure that people in detention are treated with dignity," Eunice Cho, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU's National Prison Project and report co-author, said last year. "Abuses in ICE detention should no longer go ignored. It's time to hold ICE accountable and end this failed, dangerous mass detention machine once and for all."