It’s a dirty job arresting and deporting millions of people — and Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants a few good women to help sell it to the masses.
The federal agency has launched a recruitment campaign to fill its ranks and is looking for a “women-owned small business” to create a social media campaign that’ll generate buzz for its ambitious, 14,050-person hiring spree.
The goal: Reach 42 million impressions in a targeted ad campaign that “drives national awareness of ICE’s hiring needs and open positions,” federal contracting documents show.
The chosen marketing firm will focus its recruiting efforts on social platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn and streaming services like Amazon Prime and HBO Max.
“The campaign shall dominate digital media with messages that reflect the urgency and scale of ICE’s hiring effort,” according to the documents, which were first reported by 404 Media (opens in new tab).
ICE, which has detained nursing mothers (opens in new tab) and their infants (opens in new tab), is seeking women-owned small businesses because they “are historically underrepresented in federal procurement.” The documents cite a long-running government program (opens in new tab) that seeks to “provide a level playing field for women business owners.”
For months, ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, have used their social media accounts to antagonize undocumented immigrants and goad political opponents in a way that was once unheard of for government bodies.
“America has been invaded by criminals and predators,” says one recruitment ad (opens in new tab) on Instagram. “We need YOU to get them out.”
The strategy has paid off in online engagement. ICE’s combined follower count on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube has more than doubled since Inauguration Day to 2.3 million, according to data from internet archives.
ICE — whose budget has expanded (opens in new tab) while other federal agencies, including the Department of Education and U.S. Agency for International Development, have seen theirs drastically reduced — is under pressure (opens in new tab) from the White House to turbocharge its arrest counts. That means more agents, investigators, lawyers, and the staff who support their operations. The agency evidently hopes that social media cachet can help it reach recruitment targets.
DHS claimed Tuesday in an X post (opens in new tab) that ICE had received 100,000 job applications in the previous two weeks. The 82 roles the agency is hiring for (opens in new tab) include deportation officers, criminal investigators, attorneys, and human resources specialists.
ICE and other government agencies must aim to award 5% of their annual contracting budgets to women-owned small businesses under the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract program (opens in new tab). Christoph Mlinarchik, a government contracts expert based in Virginia, said the spending targets are “aspirational goals, rather than hard requirements or strict quotas.”
Still, Mlinarchik speculated that ICE is seeking a women-owned business to meet the target by the end of fiscal year, Sept. 30.
“Many agencies scramble to achieve annual small-business goals by setting aside a larger portion of contracts in the final months — trying to compensate for fewer set-asides during the rest of the year,” Mlinarchik said.
In the 2024 fiscal year, DHS spent 8% of its contracting budget on women-owned small businesses, earning it the third-highest score (opens in new tab) from the Small Business Administration of any federal agency.
It appears ICE is already working with a women-owned small business to bolster its recruiting efforts. Data from LinkedIn’s ad library shows that the Washington, D.C.-based Direct Persuasion Group (opens in new tab) is placing ads on the platform featuring President Donald Trump and prominent DHS officials.
“Defend the homeland!” reads (opens in new tab) bold text over a stylized photo of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Direct Persuasion, whose CEO is a former digital director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, describes itself as a “woman-owned small business delivering high-impact marketing solutions to federal agencies.” Representatives of the firm did not respond to a request for comment.
ICE this week launched dozens of similar ads on Facebook and Instagram targeting job seekers that tout a $50,000 signing bonus and the scrapping (opens in new tab) of the agency’s age cap of 40, according to Meta’s ad library. Google data shows that DHS is paying for search ads that link to its career page and YouTube ads in which Noem encourages undocumented immigrants to “safely self deport (opens in new tab).”