What background checks are involved in becoming an ICE agent?

1. How ICE describes the baseline vetting: a formal federal background investigation and adjudication

ICE’s official guidance says all federal employees must undergo a thorough background investigation, evaluation, and adjudication process before appointment; that process is coordinated by ICE’s Personnel Security Division (PSD) and includes determining a favorable preliminary fitness/entry-on-duty determination ^[1]. ICE also advertises that applicants must meet eligibility and fitness requirements posted on USAJOBS and the agency recruitment pages, which frame vetting as central to hiring for deportation officers and special agents ^[2].

2. The specific pre-employment screening steps routinely cited in public materials

Public-facing materials and recruiting descriptions make clear multiple discrete checks are typical: submission of identity documents and driver’s license details, fingerprinting, consent to background checks and certain affidavits (for example declarations about domestic violence history), drug testing, medical exams, physical fitness assessments, and review of prior law enforcement or criminal history before formal entry on duty ^{[6] [2] [7]}. Job-advice sites and career guides reiterate that candidates must “pass a rigorous background check” as part of a multi-month hiring timeline that can include written tests and interviews ^{[8] [9]}.

3. Continuous Vetting and post-hire monitoring

ICE states that once employed, individuals are enrolled in Continuous Vetting, a program that regularly assesses background information using commercial and government databases and may trigger additional checks at any time to ensure ongoing suitability under federal regulations ^[1]. That means initial clearance is not final: the agency reserves authority to update adjudications based on new information discovered after hire ^[1].

4. What the reporting documents as gaps, rushes, and real-world breakdowns

Investigations and news reporting from late 2025 and early 2026 document instances where recruits entered training before fingerprinting, drug testing, or completed security checks, and where trainees were later dismissed for failing drug tests or revealing disqualifying criminal records, suggesting implementation gaps between policy and practice ^{[3] [5] [10]}. Critics and scholars warn that rapid hiring surges raise the risk of incomplete vetting and allow candidates with disciplinary histories to slip through, a concern tracked by congressional letters asking for documentation on whether individuals with prior convictions or disciplinary records have been hired ^{[11] [12]}.

5. ICE’s defense and competing narratives

ICE and DHS leadership have defended the vetting framework as “intense background investigations and security clearances, no exception,” and maintain that vetting remains a requirement even amid expansion ^[4]. At the same time, first-person reporting from a journalist who reported receiving a tentative offer without completed paperwork raises questions about administrative steps and provisional hiring mechanisms that can create impressions of “minimal vetting” in practice ^{[6] [10]}.

6. What remains unclear from available reporting

Official descriptions and reporting together outline the types of checks—criminal-history review, fingerprinting, drug testing, identity verification, medical/fitness evaluation, prior employment/disciplinary review, and continuous monitoring—but public sources vary on sequencing, timelines, and how exceptions (for prior law-enforcement hires or “streamlined validation” routes) are adjudicated in practice; those procedural details are not fully documented in the cited material ^{[1] [3] [7]}. Where reporting documents failures, it does not provide a comprehensive accounting of how widespread implementation shortcomings are across the agency ^{[5] [11]}.