Waylon Wong
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Podcast Appearances
The agency was aggressive in its recruitment efforts.
It waived age requirements and offered signing bonuses of up to $50,000.
The Department of Homeland Security says it's deploying agents to remove the, quote, worst of the worst from the U.S.
Recent surveys show an increasing number of Americans saying the immigration crackdown has gone too far.
Some politicians and community leaders are even calling for ICE to be dismantled.
Others say they need better training or a culture shift or both.
Are those changes needed and would they even make a difference?
I'm Waylon Wong, normally a co-host of Planet Money's daily podcast, The Indicator.
Today on the show, the ICE hiring boom is having domino effects.
How has training new officers changed and at what cost?
Also, the Trump administration has plans to pour billions of dollars into warehouses for mass immigrant detention centers, which can totally change the economy of some areas.
We hear from a rural town in Georgia that wants an ICE facility in its own backyard.
The Trump administration's massive tax and spending law gave $750 million to something called the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers.
These are the facilities that train recruits for ICE, U.S.
So Mark would get the trainees lined up on the street of this fake city.
And he would tell them, this is what you do if you're trying to arrest someone and a crowd starts to form.