What are the most common assignment locations for new ICE agents in 2025?
Executive summary
New ICE agents hired in 2025 were most commonly placed into Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) field offices — the agency’s 25 Field Office Divisions (FOD) that handle deportation and custodial work — with wide deployments into detention facilities, ports of entry and the agency’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) network of domestic and overseas offices as mission needs dictated [1] [2] [3]. The agency’s extraordinary hiring surge and rapid training-to-deployment timeline meant a nationwide, needs-driven dispersal rather than concentration in a handful of new “hotspot” locations [4] [5].
1. ERO field offices: the default first assignment for deportation-focused hires
Most new hires designated for enforcement duties are assigned to ERO field offices, which ICE advertises as having 25 field locations where positions are “assigned based on the needs of the agency” and where deportation officers and related roles carry out custodial operations and removals [1] [2]. ICE’s job listings and career FAQs emphasize mobility and that the first duty station will typically be a multi-year assignment at a field office, reinforcing that ERO locations are the routine first placements for officers whose primary duties involve arrests, detention logistics and removals [1] [6].
2. Detention centers and removals infrastructure absorb large numbers of new staff
Because ERO’s mission includes custodial operations and deportation processing, many newly onboarded officers were funneled into detention facilities and removal-processing roles tied to field offices; ICE job descriptions explicitly tie new positions to deportation and custodial operations [1]. The government and ICE press releases about the 2025 hiring surge note that “thousands” of newly hired officers were “already deployed nationwide and actively supporting enforcement operations, including arrests, investigations, and removals,” indicating significant placement into detention and removal workflows [5].
3. HSI and investigative posts: a sizable share across hundreds of domestic offices
Not all recruits go to ERO; Homeland Security Investigations operates as ICE’s investigative arm with thousands of special agents assigned to more than 200 domestic offices and over 50 international posts, and new investigative hires are placed within that broad HSI footprint rather than concentrated in one region [2] [6]. ICE career material and third‑party guides describe HSI assignments to field offices, ports of entry and international locations, making HSI a common assignment location for recruits with investigative or special-agent tracks [3] [6].
4. Ports of entry and international postings for mission-specific roles
ICE advertises assignments at ports of entry and overseas offices for roles that require international presence or coordination, and recruitment guidance lists ports and international assignments among possible duty locations for special agents and investigators [3] [2]. While fewer new hires go abroad than into domestic field offices, HSI’s network abroad and ICE’s statement that personnel serve in overseas offices mean international placements are a regular — if smaller — category of assignments [2].
5. Nationwide surge and shortened training produced rapid, needs-driven dispersal
The hiring blitz in 2025 more than doubled ICE’s workforce and reduced classroom training time so that many new officers were placed into the field quickly, which ICE and DHS framed as enabling rapid nationwide deployment to “support enforcement operations” across the country [4] [5]. Reporting on oversight concerns notes that the speed of hiring and deployment led to debates in Congress about whether standards or training were compromised, underlining that deployment was driven by operational demand rather than candidate location preferences [4] [7].
6. Limits of reporting and competing narratives
Public sources make clear that assignments are driven by agency need and that ERO field offices, detention infrastructure, HSI domestic offices and ports of entry are the dominant placement categories, but they do not publish a granular breakdown of how many 2025 hires went to each specific city or facility; the official statements emphasize nationwide placement without disclosing precise per‑office tallies [1] [5]. Critics and oversight voices stress the pace and scope of the campaign and warn about training and vetting trade-offs, an implicit counterpoint to agency claims of careful vetting and deliberate assignments [7] [8].