AP Investigation: ICE’s Rush To Hire 12,000 Agents Included Applicants With Troubling Records

The Associated Press found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s rapid recruitment push to add 12,000 officers and special agents brought on several hires with concerning backgrounds, raising questions about vetting, training and oversight.

What the AP Found

In a review of more than 40 recent hires who publicly listed ICE roles on LinkedIn and whose records were available through public sources, AP reporters identified examples including two hires with recent bankruptcies, several with histories of unpaid debts or legal actions, and multiple cases in which former employers alleged misconduct.

Notable individual cases:

• Carmine Gurliacci: Filed for bankruptcy in 2013 and again in 2022, reported many thousands of dollars in unpaid debts and held six different law-enforcement or security roles in Georgia over three years before joining ICE.
• Andrew Penland: A former sheriff’s deputy who left a Kansas county post after a woman sued over what she says was a wrongful arrest; the county’s insurer settled the claim for $75,000.
• Antonio Barrett: Initially failed to complete a Colorado police academy in 2020, later finished after special testing, worked three weeks as a sworn officer in La Junta, Colorado, and previously was named in a lawsuit alleging excessive force that was later dismissed.

How The Hiring Drive Worked

Congress provided roughly $75 billion to the Department of Homeland Security, and ICE launched an aggressive recruiting campaign that drew more than 220,000 applicants. The agency offered signing bonuses up to $50,000 and advertised that college degrees were not required.

ICE says most new hires are former police or military personnel. The agency also says recruits receive 56 days of formal training plus 28 days of on-the-job instruction. But former academy instructors and outside experts told AP that some training on use of force and other topics was reduced, and that the sheer speed of hiring strained background-investigation processes.

FILE - Todd Lyons, senior official performing the duties of the director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, listens during a Senate Homeland Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner, File)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Concerns From Experts And Former Officials

“If vetting is not done well and it’s done too quickly, you have higher risk of increased liability to the agency because of bad actions, abuse of power and the lack of ability to properly carry out the mission,”

— Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former ICE official who served during multiple administrations.

Independent experts say that when agencies hire at large scale, even rigorous background checks will produce outliers — but they warned that accelerated timelines and provisional hires who begin work before full vetting increase risk.

ICE’s Response

ICE has defended the campaign, with acting director Todd Lyons telling Congress the expansion would create a "well-trained and well-vetted workforce." The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that some new employees received tentative offers and began work under provisional status before completion of full background investigations, noting that vetting continues after hiring.

The agency also said it limits public disclosure of employees’ identities to protect them from harassment, which constrains public accounting of individual hires.

Bottom Line

The AP’s reporting does not show that the examples identified represent a systemic pattern across the entire hiring class. But the findings highlight tensions between political pressure to expand personnel quickly and the operational need to vet, train and supervise officers who carry significant enforcement authority.