Sep 12
2025
A potential boost to ICE deportation efforts
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U.S. Rep. Tim Kennedy.
Amid the backdrop of the Trump administration’s mass deportation program, Congressman Tim Kennedy, a Democrat, has sponsored a bill that would mandate the hiring of thousands of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.
Kennedy’s staff says the new hires would be used to facilitate people and goods crossing the borders. But data shows the Trump administration is using the class of officers covered by Kennedy’s bill to arrest and deport immigrants.
The bill — dubbed the “Securing America’s Ports of Entry Act of 2025” — would require the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection to hire 1,000 new officers each year until an appropriate staffing level is achieved. The legislation does not specify what that level may be. The labor union representing CBP officers said there’s a current shortage of 5,580.
One local advocate expressed dismay that Kennedy would sponsor such a bill while the Trump administration is targeting immigrants. The bill, she said, gives the impression Kennedy has abandoned progressives who helped him advance up the political ladder.
“I was beside myself,” said Jennifer Connor, executive director of the local immigrant advocacy group Justice for Migrant Families. “It’s really sad to see someone change their colors like this.”
Similarly, Alissa Ellman, a Democrat planning to challenge Rep. Claudia Tenney next year, said the bill should include guardrails so the Trump administration can’t reassign the officers hired. Kennedy’s staff said it has no plans to amend the legislation at present.
“In today’s current climate, there needs to be a guarantee written in there that they are not going to just hire 1,000 people and then use them as a supplemental police force for ICE,” Ellman said.
Adam Fogel, Kennedy’s chief of staff, said the legislation is aimed at smoothing travel over the border, not at aiding the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. He argued that the bill would mandate the hiring of officers who staff bridges and border crossings, not those who are arresting and deporting migrants.
Those officers, however, have been tasked with detaining individuals and families at the Peace and Rainbow bridges as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.
In one case that drew condemnation from Kennedy in April, CBP officers detained a family of four, including a toddler, for weeks at the Rainbow Bridge. Local CBP agents, in addition, have performed dozens of arrests of migrants across the region, and CBP stations have been used to detain them.
Data obtained by the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, indicates the same class of officers is being diverted to immigration raids and arrests, working under the direction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The data shows that 3,100 officers assigned to the Office of Field Operations — a division that typically staffs ports of entry — have been taken away from desk and booth jobs and put on enforcement actions so far this year. The Cato Institute reported that nearly 14,500 federal officers, from FBI and DEA agents to U.S. Marshalls, have been diverted to immigration enforcement.
A spokesperson for CBP said Field Operations officers from the Buffalo sector have been diverted to an immigration task force — housed under Homeland Security Investigations and known as the Border Enforcement Security Task Force — for several years now, beginning in the Biden administration. The Cato Institute reported the number of reassignments has increased under Trump.
The spokesperson said the Buffalo Field Office — which covers New York’s border with Canada — currently employs 1,560. It was not immediately clear how many of those employees have been diverted to the task force or other immigration enforcement work.
Fogel, Kennedy’s chief of staff, said that the number of CBP officers being reassigned nationwide is small compared to the total number of officers the agency employs.
He conceded, however, that could change. “This is the Trump administration. It could be 10,000 tomorrow.”
Fogel said the possibility the Trump administration could use newly hired CBP officers to arrest and deport people does not mean federal agencies should stop hiring officers. He noted that Federal Emergency Management Administration officers have also been redirected to immigration enforcement, but that that doesn’t mean the government should stop hiring disaster relief workers.
“If you kind of follow the logic, does that mean, you know, based on that premise, we shouldn’t hire anyone that may be diverted?” Fogel said.
Fogel said it was unlikely that a Democratic-sponsored bill would gain traction when Republicans control the House of Representatives. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” he said, provides ample resources for immigration enforcement, meaning the administration shouldn’t need to divert CBP officers from border crossings should Kennedy’s bill pass.
“I don’t think that the administration would actually support this, because they may see it as taking away from their real goal of mass deportation,” he said. “They don’t want to spend the money on more border officers. They want to spend the money on ICE agents, and that’s what they’re doing.”
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomA White House spokesperson agreed that plenty of resources are now flowing to immigration enforcement but left the door open for Trump to support the bill.
“We wouldn’t get ahead of the President on specific legislation,” spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.
Fogel said Kennedy has no plans to amend or pull support from the bill.
“We’re opposed to his mass deportation program, and we don’t believe this legislation has anything to do [with that] or will have any impact,” he said. “Even if it were passed and signed tomorrow, it wouldn’t have any substantive impact on supporting that dangerous deportation policy.”
Should Democrats take control of the House next year, he added, “there will be hearing after hearing after hearing, and subpoena after subpoena, trying to get to the bottom of how many employees were not able to do their actual job because they’re being diverted.”
