The Trump administration has unveiled plans for a $100 million “wartime recruitment” campaign aimed at dramatically expanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of its aggressive deportation agenda, according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post.

The ambitious propaganda initiative will target specific demographic groups deemed likely to support the administration’s immigration enforcement policies. These include mixed martial arts fans, listeners of self-described patriotic podcasts, and individuals who have demonstrated interest in firearms and tactical equipment, the Post reported.

ICE plans to employ sophisticated digital marketing techniques such as “geofencing,” which delivers recruitment advertisements to mobile devices when users enter predetermined locations. The agency will focus these geo-targeted campaigns around military installations, NASCAR events, university campuses, and gun shows – all venues believed to attract potential recruits sympathetic to the administration’s enforcement philosophy.

The recruitment messages currently being developed frame ICE service as a “sacred duty” to “defend the homeland” against “foreign invaders,” according to the Post’s reporting. This militaristic terminology echoes language already appearing in ICE job listings, which a University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologist, Jess Calarco, recently described as resembling “video game ads” – a comparison she suggested was “almost certainly by design.”

Sarah Saldaña, who led ICE during the Obama administration, expressed concern about the recruitment strategy’s broad targeting of individuals without law enforcement backgrounds who might be attracted to what the Post characterized as “all-out combat.”

The aggressive recruitment push comes as evidence suggests the administration is struggling to meet its ambitious deportation targets. Greg Sargent of The New Republic reported Wednesday that immigration arrests have fallen significantly short of the administration’s daily goal of 3,000 people – a figure that would be necessary to achieve presidential advisor Stephen Miller’s stated objective of deporting one million undocumented immigrants annually.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told Sargent that the administration has “not achieved the shock-and-awe campaign of mass deportations that they wanted” and continues to encounter “quite a lot of obstacles” in implementing its deportation agenda.

Reichlin-Melnick predicted that despite the administration’s efforts, “there will still be millions of people here who are undocumented” when Trump leaves office in 2028, adding that the administration “will not be able to deport even the majority of undocumented immigrants in four years.”

Earlier this year, the administration announced substantial financial incentives to attract new ICE personnel, including $50,000 sign-on bonuses and student loan repayment assistance. These benefits are part of an effort to double the agency’s workforce capacity to support expanded enforcement operations.

The recruitment campaign represents a significant escalation in the administration’s immigration enforcement strategy, which has made mass deportation a cornerstone policy. Critics argue the militaristic language and targeting methodology reflect an increasingly aggressive approach to immigration enforcement that risks further polarizing public opinion on the issue.

Immigration policy experts note that previous large-scale deportation efforts have faced logistical, legal, and resource constraints that have limited their effectiveness, raising questions about whether even this massive recruitment initiative can deliver on the administration’s ambitious deportation promises.