How has the racial and ethnic composition of ICE changed over the last decade according to federal personnel records?
Executive summary
Federal personnel records indicate only modest shifts in ICE’s racial and ethnic composition over the last decade: White employees remain the largest single group while small increases occurred among historically underrepresented racial groups in the broader federal workforce, and ICE has presented internal data describing itself as ethnically and racially diverse compared with governmentwide benchmarks [1] [2] [3]. Interpretation is complicated by evolving federal race/ethnicity standards, different data-collection practices (self‑report vs. proxy), and reporting gaps or inaccuracies revealed by watchdogs and FOIA requests [4] [5] [6].
1. What the federal trendlines show: incremental gains, not a sea change
A governmentwide analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that from FY2011 to FY2021 there were only minor increases in representation for historically disadvantaged racial groups — including Black or African American, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska Native, and persons of more than one race — and that these gains were modest rather than transformational [2].
2. ICE’s headline numbers: still majority White in public estimates
Industry compilations of public personnel data show that Whites remain the largest racial/ethnic group within ICE; one labor-market profile put the White share at roughly 55 percent of the agency’s workforce in 2023 [1]. ICE’s own diversity reporting within DHS has, at times, emphasized that the department’s workforce is “ethnically and racially diverse” and that some components exceed governmentwide benchmarks, with ICE participating in internal diversity initiatives documented in its FY2018 inclusive‑diversity materials [3].
3. Data architecture and comparability problems that muddy trend interpretation
Reliable comparison across years is made difficult by the modernization of federal race/ethnicity standards and reporting systems: OPM’s Ethnicity and Race Indicator (ERI) data element has been available since 2006 via FedScope, but the Office of Management and Budget revised race/ethnicity categories in 2024 and agencies must adapt reporting practices, which affects how trends are measured and presented [7] [4]. The shift toward a combined race‑and‑ethnicity question and new minimum categories means year‑to‑year counts may reflect definitional changes as much as personnel shifts [4].
4. Collection methods matter: self‑reporting, proxy coding, and visual observation
Federal forms and guidance stress self‑identification for race and ethnicity, but the standards and instructions also permit proxy methods — including record matching and observer identification — where self‑reporting is unavailable, and agencies may attempt to infer race/ethnicity by observation when entries are missing [5] [8]. That variability in collection method can introduce systematic bias into trend calculations and complicate assertions that observed changes reflect real shifts in hiring or retention.
5. Transparency and accuracy concerns highlighted by advocacy and FOIA findings
Civil‑society organizations have used FOIA to show that immigration agencies do keep racial and ethnic data but sometimes report it inaccurately or incompletely; watchdog reporting concluded that ICE and related agencies have inconsistently collected or disclosed demographic data, which raises questions about the precision of headline figures [6]. Independent datasets — such as FOIA‑obtained ICE enforcement records made public by research projects — are available for other demographic analysis but focus on detainees and enforcement encounters rather than workforce composition [9].
6. Bottom line: modest demographic change, qualified by measurement limits
Taken together, federal records and secondary analyses point to only modest demographic change within the federal workforce over the last decade, with ICE’s workforce still reported as majority White in public compilations even as DHS materials point to internal diversity efforts; however, changing federal standards, mixed collection methods, and documented accuracy problems mean conclusions about the magnitude and direction of change within ICE specifically must be stated cautiously and framed as contingent on data quality [2] [1] [3] [5] [6] [4].