How to Solve the ICE Manpower Problem

Immigration Don’t listen to pro-amnesty Republicans. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images The mainstream media over the past few months have participated in a messaging onslaught that, if measured as paid advertising, would likely be as costly as a presidential campaign. The media blitz has one message: to convince people deportations are not doable. This message is repeated by what I call the “Republican Amnesty caucus,” led by Rep. Maria Salazar of Florida, Rep. Bacon of Nebraska, and Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania. They insist our economy requires near-slave labor and that what the people voted for in 2024—the deportation of millions of illegal aliens—is too unwieldy, too rough, and something the American people would never actually support. That diagnosis ignores a simple fact: It is of course possible to move millions of people across America’s borders and vast territory at great speed. After all, President Joe Biden managed to do it, albeit in the direction opposite what most Americans prefer. And it is possible to use military bases as staging areas, as the Biden administration did for Operation Allies Welcome, which brought in tens of thousands of barely vetted Afghans with just a few weeks of lead time. We also know that federal lands and airfields can be used at great scale for holding thousands of illegal aliens. The Biden administration did that too, with up to 2,000 illegal aliens at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn alone. More importantly, we need to understand that remigration at scale requires us to abandon the political approach that treats the American people as an audience to fear or a constituency to be managed when it comes to this issue. The consultant class tells us that Americans won’t abide various “scenes,” and they harp on the ones they consider most uncomfortable to contemplate: an abuela being dragged away, parents being separated from children, etc. As if only those episodes were representative of remigration, and as if such individuals, unlike the rest of us, were somehow not subject to American law. We must abandon the DC-driven approach that treats the American people as an audience to plan to, and instead enlist them in a great civic effort of which we are all a part. We won’t succeed otherwise—the effort is too big. And the mobilization of our fellow citizens in this cause would itself provide the proof that there is the political will to support it. The consensus is demonstrated by the mobilization, and the national mobilization is only possible because the consensus exists. There is no version of large-scale remigration that succeeds without both. Put more simply, Americans who voted for deportations should be asked to help carry it out. Many would. By mid-November, President Donald Trump should order the establishment of a Immigration Corps and aim to hire 250,000 Americans in three months to facilitate deportation logistics and support law enforcement in a number of well-defined, historically consistent ways. United behind this president, we patriotic Americans can do this together. Why is this necessary? There was never a version of success that included the linear scaling of traditional law enforcement capacity. Even the enlisting of sheriffs, one of our greatest tools, simply doesn’t get us there in time. We need to go directly to the American people. The very same people whom the Salazars and Thompsons of the world tell us won’t do the hard jobs. This is America. We are a country that can staff 19,000 volunteer fire departments, that can conduct local disaster relief efforts through a Cajun Navy and rebuild hurricane-ravaged towns with self-organized efforts run out of Walmart parking. We can find Americans willing to drive vans, prepare records, and man weigh-station checkpoints. The assumption that everyone must remain a spectator is a peculiar concession to make before we have even asked for civic action. Deportation at this scale requires an enormous amount of resources and mundane work. It requires planes and pilots, buses and drivers, mechanics, holding facilities, and medical staff. It requires bureaucratic records and competent administration. Somebody has to do all of it. Every immigration officer focused on solving one of those problems is an officer not available for enforcement. We can look to the past for guidance here, and to understand what’s possible. Almost a century ago—on March 31, 1933—the Civilian Conservation Corps was created. By July 1, just three months later, it had roughly 275,000 recruits and 10,000 supervisors at 1,468 locations. At one point, recruitment approached 9,000 men a day. The U.S. government found work sites and moved people across the country at tremendous speed, with nowhere near the logistics capability our tax dollars countenance. In December 1941, the Civil Air Patrol organized civilian aviation skills for national service. Volunteers flew coastal patrols and carried messages. The country needed their experience and created an organization that could make use of it. We have repeatedly figured out how to put civilian skills to work whenever a national priority requires more capacity than the standing institutions possess. It is simply a function of political will. An Immigration Corps would apply existing skills and experience to the work in front of us. Retired dispatchers could coordinate vehicle schedules. Nurses could pick up extra shifts, while mechanics could take night shifts to ensure buses are available each morning. Clerks could prepare records under agency supervision. Full-time employees would provide continuity, with part-time staff filling the gaps. A useful contribution needn’t require a permanent career change. Immigration officers would remain responsible for the majority of traditional arrests and enforcement decisions. But the Corps would take on civilian support duties, a subset of which would involve contact with potentially dangerous illegal aliens. Even the simple act of driving illegal aliens from a staging area to the airport would entail risk, given the high number of illegal aliens with additional criminal records. Americans will sign up anyway. Section 3161 of Title 5 already provides a staffing framework for temporary federal organizations, including appointments outside the competitive civil service. We’re familiar with this otherwise obscure statute because it was the exact authority used to stand up DOGE—Elon Musk’s government-efficiency project—at lightning speed. Beyond Section 3161, the government has additional authorities to further expedite hiring, waive certain onboarding requirements, and make direct appointments at speed. Of course, the government would need to pay people enough to make serving not just practical but reasonably attractive. A six-month assignment would not only need to cover half a year of household expenses, but offset the risk and opportunity cost for the average household. Fortunately, there is a market-moving amount of money at our disposal, because Congress used the 2024 election mandate that Trump earned to pass the Big Beautiful Bill. In signing that bill into law, Trump effectively signed a historic check for the detention and deportation of illegal aliens. By using available, and sometimes reobligated, sums to create an Immigration Corps, America would get not only the inherent benefits of remigration, but also the rewards of putting hundreds of thousands of young men and women to work for the most important political cause there is: who we are. Subscribe Today Get daily emails in your inbox After establishing the Corps, the government should recruit through trade schools and veterans’ organizations and ask employers who support immigration enforcement to help workers take temporary assignments. Again, this is doable, whatever the Amnesty Republicans might say: the government hired half a million Americans to conduct the last census. Washington would also need to set up civilian-manned remigration centers across the country. The federal government already has a local footprint in most jurisdictions and every major city: post offices, Army recruiting centers, Coast Guard outposts, large federal office buildings, and the like. There will be protests, vandalism, and maybe worse at some of the remigration facilities and hiring stations, at least for the first few weeks. That will give us the opportunity to hire even more Americans as security guards until the outrageous turns into the ordinary and the activists get bored and went home. What would then be revealed is the normal functioning of legitimate government by and for the people. It would also reveal that the path to success for the American right remains the legitimate use of state power at scale in the face of anti-federal resistance and the leftist rioters whose violence has become so normalized in this country. Americans are entitled to decide who joins their political community. But preserving that right will take more than just voting for it. It will require true self-government and civic participation. Citizens who want immigration law enforced should tell their representatives they are prepared to serve and show up to help get it done. We have spent years asking whether Washington will act. It is time Washington asked something of us.