How many ICE employees are classified as essential during government shutdowns?
Executive summary
The best publicly available contingency estimates put roughly 19,600 ICE employees — about 95–96% of ICE’s onboard workforce in 2025 — into the “excepted” or retained category that continues working during a shutdown, leaving a small share furloughed; those figures come from DHS contingency plans and multiple news analyses [1] [2] [3]. These are plan-based counts and subject to executive discretion, reclassification of funds, and evolving agency guidance, so the exact number paid or working in any given shutdown can shift [4] [5].
1. The headline number: roughly 19,600 ICE staff classified as essential
Homeland Security contingency planning cited in local and legal analyses shows ICE would retain about 19,626 employees out of an onboard total near 21,000 during the 2025 shutdown, a figure reported as roughly 96% of ICE’s workforce [1] [2]. That retained/“excepted” figure is the clearest quantitative statement in the available reporting and has been repeated across media outlets summarizing DHS plans [1].
2. What “retained” or “excepted” actually means in practice
Employees classified as “excepted” must continue working because their duties are considered necessary for public safety or national security, but that does not always mean immediate paychecks during a lapse in appropriations; historically, excepted workers work without pay until Congress funds the government or the administration finds alternate pay authorities [5] [6]. In 2025 reporting, the White House and DHS showed discretion over pay flows — in some cases reclassifying funding sources so law enforcement personnel could be paid even during the lapse [7] [8].
3. Why the retained share is so high compared with other agencies
DHS guidance in 2025 anticipated only a small portion of DHS staff would be furloughed — roughly 14,000 furloughed across DHS versus about 260,000 continuing to work — reflecting that inspection, law-enforcement, and border functions are treated as essential, which drives the high retained percentage in ICE specifically [2]. Past ICE estimates in 2022 similarly projected a relatively small furlough share (about 17% then), so 2025 plans and recent funding boosts (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act) further reduced the projected furlough footprint [3].
4. The pay reality: “essential” does not always equal paid immediately
Even when classified as essential, many ICE agents and other federal law-enforcement personnel have been required to continue working without immediate pay during shutdowns; reporting from multiple outlets documented agents “required to report for duty despite not being paid” and administrative decisions to try to provide pay through reclassification or special measures [6] [7] [8]. Industry and labor reporting also emphasized that who actually receives pay depends on which funding streams remain available and on last-minute administrative decisions [4].
5. Sources, caveats and shifting ground
The 19,626 figure comes from DHS contingency plans and was cited by news outlets and legal analyses, but it reflects a planed retention count as of the 2025 shutdown and can be altered by executive reclassification of funds, new legislation, or operational adjustments; congressional and White House discretion over excepted status and pay creates uncertainty in any single headline number [1] [2] [5]. Reporting also shows the federal picture is uneven: some agencies used reclassification to pay certain law-enforcement staff while others remained unpaid, underscoring that “how many are essential” and “how many are paid” are related but distinct questions [7] [4].
6. Bottom line
Contingency plans and multiple contemporaneous reports converge on roughly 19,600 ICE employees being retained/excepted during the 2025 shutdown — about 95–96% of ICE’s ~21,000 onboard staff — but operational realities (work without immediate pay, administrative reclassification of funds, and the White House’s discretion) mean that the practical experience for individual employees can differ from that aggregate number [1] [2] [6] [7].