Which specific ICE job series and geographic locations are listed under OPM Special Rate Table L018 for 2026, and how do their pay totals compute with LEAP?
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Executive summary
OPM’s public pages and reporting indicate that Special Rate Table L018 was designated to cover certain DHS law-enforcement roles, including ICE criminal-investigator job series commonly coded 1811, and that qualifying criminal investigators receive Law Enforcement Availability Pay (LEAP) equal to 25% of basic pay (LEAP is fixed at 25% of the rate of basic pay) [1][2]. The exact list of geographic localities and every discrete job title contained in the published L018 table for 2026 is not present in the supplied reporting, so the concrete way to get final pay totals is (a) read the L018 table on OPM, (b) take the OPM basic/LEO locality salary for the grade/step in that location, and (c) add 25% LEAP to compute the common “total” pay used in public reporting [3][4][5].
1. What the sources actually show about L018 and ICE coverage
OPM’s special-rates index and the OPM announcement for 2026 special rates make clear that OPM publishes occupation-indexed special rate tables each year and that agencies’ coverage decisions populate those tables for law enforcement categories; reporting assembled for 2026 explicitly calls out that a Special Rate Table L018 includes DHS coverage for ICE positions such as the criminal‑investigator/1811 type roles [6][2][1]. Those same sources note OPM’s procedural timing for releasing special rate tables for 2026—published after agency consultation with an effective date of January 11, 2026—which explains why some summaries reference L018 conceptually even where the full table rows aren’t reproduced in secondary reporting [2].
2. What LEAP does and how it figures into pay totals
OPM and the reporting cited state that Law Enforcement Availability Pay (LEAP) is a statutory add-on for qualifying criminal investigators and is calculated as a fixed 25% of a criminal investigator’s rate of basic pay; that 25% is what reporters and agencies typically add to base/ locality pay to produce the “total pay” figures seen in public summaries of ICE special agent compensation [1][2]. OPM’s 2026 salary tables include separate Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) locality tables and LEO salary PDFs that must be used for LEO-covered grades when computing the locality‑adjusted rate upon which the 25% LEAP is applied [5][4].
3. Why a direct roll-up of “ICE series + locations” is missing from sources
The supplied documents and reporting do not provide the verbatim rows from Special Rate Table L018 for 2026 showing each job series and every geographic locality; instead they point readers to OPM’s special rates search and index pages and summarize coverage [3][6][1]. Therefore it is not possible, from the provided material alone, to quote a definitive list of every city or locality included under L018 for 2026 without consulting OPM’s published L018 table directly [3][6].
4. How to compute a final ICE pay total with LEAP (method and example)
The correct, reproducible method is: obtain the employee’s rate of basic pay for the grade/step and locality from OPM’s 2026 GS or LEO salary tables, confirm that the position is covered by L018 (or the OPM special-rate entry) and is a qualifying criminal investigator, then compute LEAP as 25% of that basic pay and add it to the basic/locality-adjusted pay to get the commonly reported “total pay” [4][5][1][2]. The sources do not supply a concrete numeric example tied to a specific L018 row, so producing a verified numeric total for a named ICE grade/location is not supportable from the supplied reporting; the math, however, is straightforward and specified in OPM guidance (25% of basic pay added to basic pay) [1][2].
5. Alternative viewpoints, agendas, and where to look next
Coverage that emphasizes high “ICE agent” salaries often highlights LEAP‑inflated totals without always distinguishing base GS/LEO locality pay from the LEAP component; that framing can advance recruitment narratives or defend retention budgets, while skeptics may point to locality freezes or base increases elsewhere—OPM documents about the 2026 pay plan and locality guidance provide the official context and constraints for those debates [2][7]. To resolve any remaining specifics—exact job series rows and the list of geographic localities under L018 for 2026—the primary source is OPM’s Special Rates search or the published L018 PDF/table on opm.gov; secondary reporting should be treated as summary, not a substitute for the tabular source [3][6].