What internal DHS documents or FOIA releases exist that show exactly how ICE disbursed signing bonuses in 2025–2026?

1. What the sources explicitly show: policy and publicity, not granular payouts

ICE’s publicly posted directive on recruitment bonuses (Directive 1017.1) establishes the agency’s policy framework for recruitment incentives and is available on ICE’s site ^[1], and ICE has also published recruitment‑campaign press materials announcing large hiring numbers and recruitment drives ^[5], while independent reporting documented specific advertised offers—such as up to $50,000 for retired employees to return ^[4]; none of those public materials, however, provide transaction‑level accounting or a FOIA release listing individual disbursements for 2025–2026 ^{[1] [5] [4]}.

2. What FOIA infrastructure exists to seek the records

ICE and DHS maintain FOIA offices and online libraries and monthly FOIA release pages where responsive records are sometimes posted ^{[2] [3] [6]}, and DHS directs requesters to the central FOIA.gov portal for submissions as of January 22, 2026 ^[7]; these sources document the procedural route for obtaining internal records but do not themselves constitute the internal bonus disbursement records the question asks about ^{[2] [7]}.

3. Absence of an identified FOIA release showing “exactly how” bonuses were disbursed

A comprehensive search of the supplied ICE/DHS FOIA pages and the cited reporting turned up no FOIA release or published internal document that itemizes who received bonuses, the amounts paid by pay period or transaction, or the administrative routing of those funds for 2025–2026; the available materials are either policy-level (Directive 1017.1) or promotional reporting (ICE press release and news coverage) rather than transactional disclosures ^{[1] [5] [4]}.

4. How to interpret the publicity versus audit‑grade records

ICE’s press statement touting a massive recruitment haul (calling the campaign the “most successful”) and separate media stories about bonus offers reflect agency messaging and journalistic reporting on advertised incentives, which can overstate outcomes or conflate offered bonuses with actually disbursed sums; the difference between “offered” and “disbursed” is critical and is not bridged by the materials reviewed here ^{[5] [4]}.

5. Where the records would likely be found and obstacles to access

If transaction‑level disbursement records exist for 2025–2026, they would most plausibly appear in ICE or DHS FOIA productions (monthly FOIA releases or specific FOIA responses) or internal financial/audit reports responsive to targeted FOIA requests, and requesters must use the DHS/ICE FOIA process—now routed through FOIA.gov and ICE’s FOIA office—to seek them ^{[3] [7] [2]}. The supplied sources also note practical hurdles—agencies’ FOIA pages and fee guidance—suggesting formal requests and patience will be necessary ^[6].

6. Assessment, caveats, and recommended next steps for researchers

Based on the documents and webpages provided, there is no released internal DHS/ICE FOIA document in the reviewed corpus that shows exactly how ICE disbursed signing bonuses in 2025–2026; researchers seeking that level of detail should file a narrowly tailored FOIA request via FOIA.gov to ICE’s FOIA office asking for payment vouchers, personnel action forms, and disbursement records tied to bonus codes or contract numbers for the 2025–2026 period, and expect redactions or exemptions on personnel or privacy grounds—an outcome suggested by the need to use formal FOIA channels described on ICE and DHS FOIA pages ^{[2] [6] [3] [7]}. Exact transactional disclosures were not found in the materials provided for this analysis, and therefore cannot be cited as existing.