Throughout February 2026, rumors online suggested that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were not being paid. The exact details of the claim — and thus the severity of the alleged short-changing — differed from post to post. Depending on the post, agents were either not receiving their entire paychecks or a $50,000 sign-up bonus prominently featured in ICE recruitment ads.
As an example, one Instagram post featured an image with overlaid text reading, "ICE recruits say promised $50K bonuses never came as Trump hiring push backfires."
Snopes readers also contacted us looking for more information about the claims.
Despite the rumors, there was not much firsthand information available online; therefore, it wasn't possible to confirm or disprove any of the allegations. Snopes reached out to ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Personnel Management for comment but, as of this writing, had not received a response from any agency. We will update this article if any of them reply. As such, this story remains unrated.
(Any active ICE agents wishing to provide information on the topic are encouraged to reach out to Snopes via our tip page at the bottom of this article.)
Here's what we found out:
Why there's no information
The lack of information can partially be chalked up to the agency's hyper-publicized operations — particularly, its use of unmarked, masked and heavily armed agents throughout President Donald Trump's second term. The federal government has consistently defended its agents' identities, saying they must remain anonymous due to fear of doxing. (The Trump administration's definition of doxing appears to include simply publicly naming an agent, broadening the standard definition of the word — the publication of sensitive, location-identifying information).
A subreddit for ICE agents — in which the rumor reportedly originated, according to an article by online newspaper International Business Times — was recently set to private, meaning users could not join or access the forum without moderator approval. This made it difficult to find public comments from ICE agents on their working conditions.
A Wired article, published around the same time the ICE employee subreddit went private, documented several complaints, such as "long working hours" and "limited overtime pay." The article did not provide confirmation regarding the claims, though it did quote one Reddit user as saying, "Haven't heard a peep about the sign-on bonuses either."
Meanwhile, one X user (archived) (whose post later appeared in a Daily Dot article) posted four screenshots, three of which purportedly showed ICE employees on the subreddit. The posts allegedly revealed ICE agents complaining about receiving no healthcare after two months of work, no pay after four weeks of work and that a large chunk of the promised $10,000 sign-up bonus went to taxes.
Snopes reached out to all the accounts featured in the screenshots. Several had since been deleted or set to private. None had responded at the time of publication.
Claims about bonuses may have some truth
While it was not possible to confirm or deny the rumors, it was possible there was some truth to the idea that new hires were not given the full $50,000 sign-up bonus the agency has touted.
Despite the government's attempts to keep the exact details of the offer secret (for instance, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, another DHS agency, placed an asterisk on the $50,000 bonus without seemingly clarifying what its terms are), reports suggest that only retired employees returning to the job are eligible for the bonus and that it comes in $10,000 chunks.
For fruther reading, Snopes previously investigated a claim that newly hired ICE agents were being paid more than teachers.