The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was harshly criticized after it tried to discredit reporter Laura Jedeed, who detailed in an article for Slate how she applied and was accepted to become an ICE agent despite not filling out any of the required paperwork or going through a background check.
In her article, "You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof.," Jedeed says her original intent at an ICE Career Expo in Texas last August was simply to see “what it was like to apply to be an ICE agent,” not to join the agency.
A U.S. Army veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan and is now a journalist critical of ICE and the Trump administration, Jedeed assumed her outspoken views would disqualify her.
But after a brief interview of basic questions, she says she received a tentative offer email and later saw her status listed as “Entered on Duty” in the government jobs portal — even though she never completed the required paperwork, background checks, or disclosures.
Jedeed declined the position and argued that the experience exposed “minimal screening” and a deeply flawed recruitment process at ICE, raising concerns about who might be hired.
DHS denied she was ever officially offered a job, calling the claim “a lazy lie":
"This is such a lazy lie. This individual was NEVER offered a job at ICE. Applicants may receive a Tentative Selection Letter following their initial application and interview that is not a job offer. It just means they are invited to submit information for review, similar to any other applicant."
You can see the department's post below.
But Jedeed came with the receipts, posting video she says shows a final offer and onboarding date—the footage also displays a completed background investigation dated six days after her listed Entrance on Duty, contradicting claims that she was never formally hired.
She also shared a screenshot of the internal dashboard showing that DHS had indeed offered her a position.
@LauraJedeed/X
She also pointed out the flaws with DHS' logic, writing on X:
"The new line seems to be that I lied to ICE so of course they hired me which, first off, would also be a pretty big problem. Me lying, them not catching it? Hmm. But here's the thing: I didn't lie. I used my real name, DOB and social. My resume was 100% accurate."
She added:
"I didn't go in here intending to get hired, I intended to get in the door, hand in my (accurate!) resume, get out before they figured out who I was, and write an article."
"And y'all can cope and seethe and pretend it's fine that ICE is handing out guns to literally anyone, but it's very hard to take your whole 'anyone who opposes ICE is a domestic terrorist' thing seriously when you're simultaneously arguing that ICE should be hiring those people."
DHS was swiftly called out.
In her article, Jedeed observed that the ICE expo she attended "was part of ICE’s massive recruitment campaign for the foot soldiers it needs to execute the administration’s dream of a deportation campaign large enough to shift America’s demographic balance back whiteward."
She pointed out that "despite this event’s lackluster attendance, their recruitment push is reportedly going well; the agency reported 12,000 new recruits in 2025, which means the agency has more new recruits than old hands. That’s the kind of growth that changes the culture of an agency."
@WhiteHouse/X
