Well, if it isn’t the consequences of the government’s own actions.
ICE can generate multiple horrible stories a day but it still can’t seem to find enough brown people to deport daily to satisfy White House advisor Stephen Miller’s demands for 3,000 arrests per day.
Trump and the GOP threw a lot of money at this problem with the Big Beautiful Bill. A lot of money: $75 billion over the next four years. Part of that goes to another metric ICE will apparently never meet: 10,000 new hires.
Not that ICE isn’t trying. It’s currently pissing off law enforcement agencies all over the country by throwing $50,000 signing bonuses at new recruits — something that has the potential to deprive local law enforcement of some of their current, um… talent. It has also lowered its standards and ripped the age limits off both ends of the scale, hoping to attract a blend of people who’ve already aged out of physical work and fresh faces their new bosses will likely assume don’t really want work.
Now that it’s been a few months since the hiring surge began, we’re finally seeing some results. And it’s possibly worse than you imagine.
My high school had more strict passing requirements for PE. Not to be ableist or anything, but the physical portion of this test is a pretty low bar for most able-bodied remotely fit people.
As for the drug test portion, this is actually probably the hardest requirement. I’ve seen how strict the drug testing requirement is, and even recreational use of weed can screw you on those tests for longer than you’d think.