DHS Secretary Kristi Noem Praises ICE and HSI Officers, Highlights 2025 Rescue Incidents on Law Enforcement Appreciation Day

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for enforcing immigration laws and more than 400 related federal statutes, focusing on interior immigration enforcement, detention and removal, preventing terrorism, and combating the illegal movement of people and goods.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is a directorate within ICE and serves as its principal criminal investigative arm. HSI conducts federal criminal investigations into transnational crime and violations of customs and immigration laws (such as human trafficking, child exploitation, drug and weapons smuggling, financial and cybercrime, export-control and intellectual‑property violations) in the U.S. and abroad.

In short: ICE is the overall agency; HSI is one of its two main operational components (alongside Enforcement and Removal Operations) and specializes in complex criminal investigations rather than day‑to‑day civil immigration arrests and removals.

ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations, a major directorate within ICE.

According to ICE, ERO’s officers and staff:

• Identify, arrest, and detain noncitizens who are subject to removal or are unlawfully present in the U.S.
• Manage detention operations and custody conditions for people held under ICE authority.
• Transport and remove (deport) noncitizens ordered removed from the United States, including targeting fugitives and those who re‑enter after removal.

These are the core “enforcement and removal” duties that underlie the ERO references in the DHS Law Enforcement Appreciation Day release.

HSI Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) are all‑volunteer teams made up of Homeland Security Investigations special agents and support personnel who are trained and equipped to deploy quickly during natural or man‑made disasters and other emergencies.

ICE describes them as:

• First‑responder units that deploy when federal, state, or local agencies request ICE assistance, for example during major flooding or hurricanes.
• Operational 24/7 with the motto “Anytime, Anywhere,” typically able to deploy to an affected area within 12–24 hours.
• Trained in disaster response skills such as first aid, rescue techniques, land navigation, and operating in hazardous conditions, and organized under HSI’s Emergency Management Unit.

The source for the figures claiming a more than 1,300% increase in assaults, 3,200% increase in vehicular attacks, and 8,000% increase in death threats against ICE/DHS officers is a January 8, 2026 DHS press release titled “Radical Rhetoric by Sanctuary Politicians Leads to an Unprecedented 1,300% Increase in Assaults Against ICE Officers and a 3,200% Increase in Vehicular Attacks.” The Law Enforcement Appreciation Day statement the next day repeats these numbers and explicitly cites DHS’s own statistics.

The only methodology disclosed in DHS’s materials is:

• For assaults: DHS says officials “reported 275 assaults” on ICE officers from Jan. 20–Dec. 31, 2025, compared with 19 assaults in the same period in 2024, which it describes as a 1,347% increase.
• For vehicular attacks: DHS says ICE officers experienced 66 vehicular attacks from Jan. 21, 2025–Jan. 7, 2026, compared with 2 in the same period the previous year, which it labels a 3,200% increase.
• For death threats: the release states there was an 8,000% increase in death threats, but it does not publish the underlying counts or explain how threats were defined or verified.

DHS does not provide a public technical report or dataset detailing data sources, definitions (for what counts as an assault, vehicular attack, or death threat), or validation methods, so the precise methodology beyond these simple year‑over‑year comparisons is not publicly documented.

DHS law enforcement actions, including those by ICE and HSI, are subject to multiple layers of oversight and review, though the strength and independence of these mechanisms has been under pressure in recent years:

1. DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG)

   • An independent watchdog that conducts audits, inspections, investigations, and evaluations of DHS programs and operations, including ICE detention facilities and enforcement activities, and can investigate misconduct by DHS personnel.

2. Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL)

   • A DHS office that “continues to exist” and is charged by statute with receiving and investigating civil rights and civil liberties complaints related to DHS activities, including ICE and HSI, and issuing recommendation memos to address abuses (such as violations in immigration detention).
   • Investigative records show CRCL has repeatedly examined ICE detention conditions and use‑of‑force issues, although reporting in 2025 documented that DHS removed many of CRCL’s public investigative memos from its website and froze hundreds of ongoing investigations, weakening its practical oversight role.

3. Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO)

   • An independent office within DHS, explicitly not part of ICE or CBP, created by Congress to examine immigration detention, investigate complaints about detention conditions or incidents, and recommend corrective action.

4. Other oversight (not exhaustive)

   • Internal ICE oversight bodies such as the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and ERO’s own detention‑oversight functions.
   • External oversight by Congress, federal courts, and other watchdogs; for example, the Project On Government Oversight has published large collections of CRCL investigative memos detailing systemic problems at ICE facilities.

Overall, while formal oversight structures remain in place (OIG, CRCL, OIDO, internal ICE offices, and courts), investigative reporting indicates that some key civil‑rights‑focused oversight functions within DHS have been reduced or constrained since 2024–2025.

The join.ICE.gov ("America Needs You") recruitment campaign points applicants to ICE law‑enforcement and related careers, primarily via ICE’s central recruiting pages and USAJOBS. Typical positions highlighted include:

• Deportation Officer / Detention and Deportation Officer (ERO) – front‑line officers who locate, arrest, process, detain, and remove noncitizens subject to immigration enforcement.
• Criminal Investigator / Special Agent (HSI) – federal agents who conduct complex criminal investigations into transnational crime, smuggling, trafficking, cyber and financial crime, and other customs/immigration‑related offenses.
• General Attorney (OPLA) – lawyers who represent DHS/ICE in immigration court and advise ICE programs.
• Various mission‑support roles (e.g., criminal analysts, management and program analysts, mission support specialists, seized‑property specialists, medical personnel, IT and administrative staff).

Typical baseline qualifications across these jobs, as reflected in ICE’s recruitment materials and vacancy announcements, include:

• U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a federal security clearance and pass a background investigation.
• Meeting medical, fitness, and firearms standards for law‑enforcement roles.
• For many entry‑level law‑enforcement positions, no undergraduate degree is strictly required (ICE’s campaign explicitly states “You do not need an undergraduate degree”), although degrees and prior law‑enforcement or military experience can improve competitiveness and are often required or preferred at higher grades (e.g., GL‑9 criminal investigator, attorney roles).

Applications themselves are submitted through USAJOBS and ICE career portals linked from the join.ICE.gov / “America Needs You” page.