The Trump administration is hoping to use an unprecedented $75 billion infusion of funding into Immigration and Customs Enforcement to roughly double the number of active immigration agents to 10,000 by early next year, but scores of new hires are reportedly failing the agency’s physical fitness requirements, slowing a key part of the recruiting push.
With ICE now offering incentives like loan forgiveness and $50,000 bonuses, the agency has been flooded with more than 150,000 applications this year, but about a third of recruits at the agency’s academy have been unable to pass a basic fitness test requiring 15 push-ups, 32 sit-ups, and running one-and-a-half miles in 14 minutes, The Atlantic reports, citing administration officials.
