MAGA cheerleader Kari Lake has incorrectly claimed that 80,000 Americans have signed up to join ICE to assist Donald Trump’s administration in its crackdown on illegal immigration.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last week invited applications for U.S. citizens to join the controversial law enforcement agency, saying: “Your country is calling you to serve at ICE. Your country needs dedicated men and women of ICE to get the worst of the worst criminals out of our country.
“This is a defining moment in our nation’s history. Your skills, your experience, and your courage have never been more essential. Together, we must defend the homeland.”
Her recruitment drive was swiftly followed by Trump’s border czar Tom Homan reporting on Tuesday that 300,000 people have been deported in the past 200 days and that a further 1 million in the United States illegally have left of their own volition.
Lake, a former TV journalist, failed Arizona political candidate. Now senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, appeared on Rob Schmitt’s Newsmax’s show on Wednesday and said she was “very encouraged” by ICE’s progress but insisted there was still work to do, claiming that 15 million migrants had entered the country without permission during Joe Biden’s presidency.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” she told Schmitt. “It was just tragic to see. And you think of the children who were trafficked.
“But I think the fact that so many Americans are signing up to be ICE agents. And I heard Kristi Noem, our great Secretary of Homeland Security, say 80,000 Americans have signed up.
“They want to take part. They want to help send these people back home, repatriate them back to their homeland and save our homeland. And so I’m actually very encouraged. I see good things happening in this first 200 days.”
Lake appeared to be misquoting Noem, who said in a DHS press release and during an appearance on Fox News’s Fox and Friends breakfast show on Wednesday that ICE had received 80,000 applications in response to her job advert, not that it had made 80,000 new hires.
Noem told Fox the agency is seeking to fill 10,000 officer positions and that the influx of applications had been “overwhelming.”
ICE states on its website that it currently has “20,000 law enforcement and support personnel in more than 400 offices in the United States and around the world.”
One person who has signed up to join the agency’s ranks is former Superman TV actor Dean Cain, who announced his decision on social media this week and encouraged others to follow his example, stressing that anyone doing so would enjoy “great benefits” like a $50,000 signing-on bonus and would not need an undergraduate degree.
“Since President Trump took office, ICE has arrested hundreds of thousands of criminals including terrorists, rapists, murderers, pedophiles, MS-13 gang members, drug traffickers, you name it – very dangerous people who are no longer on the streets,” Cain told his followers.
“If you want to help save America, ICE is arresting the worst of the worst and removing them from America's streets. I like that. I voted for that.
“They need your help, we need your help, to protect our homeland for families. Join today if it’s something that tickles your fancy because we can use you.”
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