(NewsNation) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to build a “robust volunteer cadre” of border agents and processing coordinators to temporarily shift responsibilities in the apprehension of criminal migrants in cities and communities around the United States, NewsNation has confirmed.
ICE plans to send volunteers to large and small cities across the U.S., according to an email sent to Customs and Border Protection agents and managers and obtained by NewsNation. Duties of the operation will be “enforcement-centric”, the email said.
The email indicated that deployment locations and the length of time required for the assignment are currently being decided. A request to CBP seeking more details about the operation, including how many volunteers would be required, was not immediately returned.
The shift to the nation’s interior comes after Trump administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House border czar Tom Homan, have said the southern border is the most secure it has been in the country’s history.
Border encounters and illegal crossings have reportedly dropped significantly since President Donald Trump took office in January. Noem has boasted that encounters have dropped by 95% since last spring as part of Trump’s focus on closing the border to immigrants looking to enter the country illegally.
ICE has also ramped up efforts to arrest migrants with criminal backgrounds who were previously ordered to leave the U.S., or who have not yet been taken into federal custody. Noem and Homan have repeated that the administration’s focus remains on arresting and detaining “the worst of the worst”.
However, ICE operations have drawn outrage from some opponents of Trump’s immigration agenda. The agency drew national attention last weekend after Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested and charged with trespassing while attempting to visit a migrant detention center in New Jersey.
In Tennessee, more than 100 immigration-related arrests were made recently in Nashville, where ICE partnered with the Tennessee State Patrol. Over a week, more than 500 traffic stops were made by the two agencies, resulting in 103 arrests.
The operations came after Homan and Noem accompanied federal agents to major cities like New York, Chicago and Denver, seeking to arrest and detain criminal migrants.
As Congress considers Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which includes an estimated $140 billion for immigration enforcement, the solicitation for volunteers would provide more interior manpower. NewsNation spoke with border agents who said they are willing to accept the shift in duties despite few details about the operation being publicly released.
A request sent by NewsNation to ICE on Thursday seeking more information about the volunteer effort was not immediately returned.
However, John Fabbricatore, former director of the ICE field office in Denver, said building volunteer teams for ICE use is not uncommon. He told NewsNation that similar large-scale operations took place under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations.
In many cases, the assignments could last as short as two weeks, he said, although agents on intelligence teams could face longer assignments.
Fabbricatore said a significant difference between this operation and previous missions could be the scope. Trump officials have reported there are currently 11 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S., and the administration has not been shy about its desire to deport as many migrants who have either been previously ordered to leave or who have criminal convictions or backgrounds as possible.
Where volunteers are sent is based entirely on need, Fabbricatore said. The agents would not be required to participate in ICE training, as the academies that CBP and ICE use to train agents are similar in terms of immigration law and arrest techniques, he said.
Finding volunteers to accept a change in assignment and scenery likely will not be difficult, he said.
“With the border being locked down, the Border Patrol wants to get into the mix with interior arrests,” Fabbricatore told NewsNation. “They are well-trained, have high morale right now and are ready to implement President Trump’s enthusiastic enforcement of immigration law.”