Several arrests involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel in recent months have drawn fresh scrutiny of what critics say are risks of abuse and corruption inside the agency, The Associated Press reported, based on a review of public records and statements.
The AP said the review examined cases involving ICE employees and contractors arrested since 2020 and found a documented pattern that includes physical and sexual abuse, corruption, and other abuses of authority. Investigators described conduct reaching beyond the workplace, including allegations involving violence and misconduct tied to officers’ actions while off duty.
The AP’s review also comes as lawmakers last year approved a $75 billion increase to hire more ICE agents and expand detention, shifting the agency toward a larger workforce and enforcement role. Experts quoted by the AP warned that as ICE’s size grows—ICE announced last month that it had more than doubled in size to 22,000 employees in less than one year—misconduct could accelerate because of the scale of staffing and the difficulty of removing employees after they enter training and employment.
In comments cited by the AP, former U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske argued that once ICE hires and trains a person who later turns out to be “not the right person,” it becomes difficult to remove them. “Once a person is hired, brought on, goes through the training and they are not the right person, it is difficult to get rid of them and there will be a price to be paid later down the road by everyone,” Kerlikowske said.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who responded to the AP reporting, said wrongdoing was not widespread within ICE and that the agency takes misconduct allegations seriously. McLaughlin said ICE “takes allegations of misconduct by its employees extremely seriously,” adding that most new hires had already worked for other law enforcement agencies and that backgrounds were “thoroughly vetted.” She also said the agency’s officers bring professionalism “day-in and day-out,” according to her remarks carried in the AP report.
AP’s review presented multiple examples of cases that have become local headlines around the country, including an ICE field office supervisor in Cincinnati, Samuel Saxon, who was jailed in December on charges that he attempted to strangle his girlfriend. The AP reported that a judge found Saxon had abused the woman for years, fracturing her hip and nose and causing internal bleeding, and that a detention order described him as “a volatile and violent individual,” with the AP also noting that attorneys did not return a message seeking comment. The report said ICE has described him as absent without leave.
The AP also cited an ICE employment eligibility auditor, Alexander Back, who was arrested in Minnesota in a sting that involved a person he believed was a 17-year-old. The AP reported Back has pleaded not guilty to attempted enticement of a minor, and that ICE said he is on administrative leave while the agency investigates.
Other examples described by AP included an ICE officer in suburban Chicago who was arrested after officers found a man passed out in a crashed car and discovered the driver had recently completed a shift at a detention center and had a government firearm in the vehicle; the AP said the man, Guillermo Diaz-Torres, has pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence and has been put on administrative duty pending an investigation. The AP also described a case in Florida in which an ICE officer was arrested for driving drunk with children in the car and, according to a body camera video described by AP, threatened to check an arresting deputy’s immigration status while warning, “I’ll run him once I get out of here and if he’s not legit, ooh, he’s taking a ride back to Haiti,” which the AP attributed to Scott Deiseroth during the arrest.
Beyond cases involving individual arrests, the AP report said its review found force and abuse allegations involving ICE employees and contractors, including conduct toward detainees. The AP said a former top official at an ICE contract facility in Texas was sentenced to probation after acknowledging he grabbed a handcuffed detainee by the neck and slammed him into a wall, with prosecutors described by AP as having downgraded a charge from a felony to a misdemeanor. AP also said an ICE contractor pleaded guilty in Louisiana to sexually abusing a detainee and that prosecutors said the abuse involved sexual encounters with a Nicaraguan national over a five-month period in 2025 as the person instructed other detainees to act as lookouts.
In another category described by AP, the review said corruption charges involved ICE officials accused of using their authority for financial gain, including allegations that an ICE deportation officer in Houston accepted cash bribes from bail bondsmen in exchange for removing detainers placed on clients targeted for deportation. AP reported that the officer was indicted last summer, pleaded not guilty to seven counts, and was released from custody while awaiting trial, after ICE said in May 2024 the officer was “indefinitely suspended.” The AP also described allegations involving a former supervisor in ICE’s New York City office accused of providing confidential immigration information in exchange for gifts and other gain, and allegations involving Utah-based ICE investigators sentenced for a scheme involving stealing synthetic drugs known as “bath salts” from government custody and selling them through informants.
The AP report also included context about oversight concerns raised by critics and how the department responds to them. McLaughlin said the agency vets backgrounds of new hires and takes allegations seriously. Kerlikowske cautioned that large, fast-changing agencies face structural challenges, while David Bier of the Cato Institute said that compared with previous corruption concentrated in border interactions, ICE’s broader enforcement mission could spread misconduct to a wider range of locations and communities. “The corruption and the abuse and the misconduct was largely confined in the prior instance to along the border and interactions with immigrants and border state residents. With ICE, this is going to be a countrywide phenomenon as they pull in so many people who are attracted to this mission,” Bier said.
The AP said its review also identified officers charged in the last year, including an agent cited last month for assaulting a protester near Chicago while off duty. The report said experts and critics have raised concerns about how the agency’s expansion, coupled with the power ICE officers can exercise over vulnerable populations, may contribute to more opportunities for misconduct—and that prosecutors and other authorities in Democratic-led jurisdictions have continued to scrutinize the agency’s actions.