As ICE Expands, an AP Review of Crimes Committed by Agents Shows How Their Powers Can Be Abused

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : But ICE's rapid growth and mission to deport millions are unprecedented, and the AP review found that the immense power that officers exercise over vulnerable populations can lead to abuses.
56% : Williams had driven his government vehicle, which was filled with cash, alcohol, pills and Viagra, and was carrying his ICE badge and loaded government firearm.
51% : A former top official at an ICE contract facility in Texas was sentenced to probation on Feb. 4 after acknowledging he grabbed a handcuffed detainee by the neck and slammed him into a wall last year.
49% : In this screengrab made from body camera footage provided by the Othello, Wash., Police Department, police officers arrest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervisor Koby Williams in July 2022 during an underage sex sting operation.
49% : "America can be proud of the professionalism our officers bring to the job day-in and day-out," she said. ICE misconduct could become a 'countrywide phenomenon' ICE announced last month that it had more than doubled in size to 22,000 employees in less than one year.
49% : Outside Chicago, an off-duty ICE agent has been charged with misdemeanor battery for throwing to the ground a 68-year-old protester who was filming him at a gas station in December.
48% : Prosecutors say a former supervisor in ICE's New York City office provided confidential information about people's immigration statuses to acquaintances and made an arrest in exchange for gifts and other gain.
47% : With ICE, this is going to be a countrywide phenomenon as they pull in so many people who are attracted to this mission," said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Bier, who has helped publicize some of the recent arrests and other alleged misconduct by ICE agents, said he has been struck by the "remarkable array of different offenses and charges that we've seen.
46% : Other charges cited corruption Another pattern that emerged in AP's review involved ICE officials charged with abusing their power for financial gain.
44% : While most of the cases happened before Congress voted last year to give ICE $75 billion to hire more agents and detain more people, experts say these kinds of crimes could accelerate given the sheer volume of new employees and their empowerment to use aggressive tactics to arrest and deport people.
44% : " AP's review examined public records involving cases of ICE employees and contractors who have been arrested since 2020, including at least 17 who have been convicted and six others who are awaiting trial.
44% : Local agencies are looking into last month's fatal shootings in Minneapolis of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, as well as the killing of Keith Porter by an off-duty ICE agent in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve.
44% : ICE said he is considered absent without leave.
41% : He and others say ICE is poised to see similar problems that will likely be broader in scope, with less oversight and accountability.
40% : At least two dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees and contractors have been charged with crimes since 2020, and their documented wrongdoing includes patterns of physical and sexual abuse, corruption and other abuses of authority, a review by The Associated Press found.
40% : One judge recently suggested that ICE was developing a troubling culture of lawlessness, while experts have questioned whether job applicants are getting enough vetting and training.
40% : Kerlikowske said ICE agents are particularly "vulnerable to unnecessary use of force issues," given that they often conduct enforcement operations in public while facing protests.
40% : " Several cases involve force and abuse The AP's review found a pattern of charges involving ICE employees and contractors who mistreated vulnerable people in their care.
39% : The Border Patrol doubled in size to more than 20,000 agents from 2004 to 2011 -- six years longer than ICE took.
39% : Some of the most serious crimes were committed by veteran ICE employees and supervisors rather than rookies.
38% : While federal officials have justified ICE's aggression, the behavior of agents is drawing scrutiny from cellphone-wielding observers and prosecutors in Democratic-led jurisdictions.
38% : "I'm ICE, boys," an ICE employment eligibility auditor told police in Minnesota in November when he was arrested in a sting as he went to meet a person he thought was a 17-year-old prostitute.
38% : In 2022, ICE supervisor Koby Williams was arrested in a sting by police in Othello, Washington, while going to a hotel room to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old girl he'd arranged to pay for sex.
37% : After an ICE officer in Florida was stopped for driving drunk with his two children in the car in August, he tried to get out of charges by pointing to his law enforcement and military service.
37% : The 22-year ICE veteran offered a rationale that turned out to be a lie: that he was there to "rescue" the girl as part of a human trafficking investigation.
36% : In December, an ICE contractor pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a detainee at a detention facility in Louisiana.
35% : With the number of ICE detainees nearly doubling since last year to 70,000, employees and contractors responsible for overseeing them are also facing challenging conditions that can provide more opportunities for misconduct.
34% : An ICE deportation officer in Houston was indicted last summer on charges that he repeatedly accepted cash bribes from bail bondsmen in exchange for removing detainers ICE had placed on their clients targeting them for deportation.
34% : ICE said the officer was "indefinitely suspended" in May 2024, before his arrest one year later.
33% : Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that wrongdoing was not widespread in the agency, and that ICE "takes allegations of misconduct by its employees extremely seriously."
33% : Arrests have made local headlines Around the country, the cases have attracted unwelcome headlines for ICE, which has spent millions of dollars publicizing the criminal rap sheets of those they arrest as the "worst of the worst.
32% : The assistant ICE field office supervisor in Cincinnati, Samuel Saxon, a 20-year ICE veteran, has been jailed since his arrest in December on charges that he attempted to strangle his girlfriend.
27% : ICE said Back is on administrative leave while the agency investigates. -- When officers in suburban Chicago found a man passed out in a crashed car in October, they were surprised to discover the driver was an ICE officer who had recently completed his shift at a detention center and had his government firearm in the vehicle.
14% : Two Utah-based ICE investigators were sentenced to prison last year for a scheme in which they made hundreds of thousands of dollars stealing synthetic drugs known as "bath salts" from government custody and selling them through government informants. ICE officials used badges to try to avoid consequences The wrongdoing often included the use of ICE resources and credentials to try to avoid arrest or receive favorable treatment.

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