By Faced with a severe staffing shortage, the Trump administration is betting that the roar of a muscle car might do what traditional incentives have failed to achieve: draw thousands of new recruits to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
According to federal documents, ICE has purchased two 2025 Ford Mustang GT Fastbacks—each a 480-horsepower, 5.0-liter V8 machine—at a combined cost of more than $120,000. Decked out with gold ICE logos and emblazoned with the slogan “Defend the Homeland,” the vehicles are meant to serve as “a bold, high-performance symbol of innovation, strength and modern federal service,” writes Auto Blog.
The Mustangs will headline career fairs and recruitment drives, part of a broader strategy to rebrand ICE and inject energy into an agency struggling with low morale. The initiative coincides with the administration’s effort to expand civilian immigration arrests and hire 14,000 new officers over the next two years—an ambitious target backed by $30 billion in funding from what the White House calls “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”
The flashy cars are hardly the only prong of the campaign. ICE has already sunk more than $700,000 into customizing other vehicles, including a Ford Raptor and a GMC Yukon wrapped to mimic former President Trump’s private Boeing 757. Those vehicles have been rolled out at events and featured in recruitment videos designed to catch attention on social media.
Federal agencies are no strangers to spectacle. The FBI maintains a fleet of high-end vehicles, while the military regularly showcases advanced hardware to entice young recruits. But using luxury muscle cars explicitly for recruitment marks a departure in style—even by Washington standards.
The purchase, awarded without competitive bidding due to what officials described as the urgency of the recruitment drive, was fulfilled by Banister Ford in Suitland, Maryland, just outside the capital. One of the Mustangs was spotted in downtown Washington on August 18, turning heads well before its official debut.
The White House has been working double time to bolster ICE ranks as it works to deport millions of illegal immigrants. Politico recently reported that “Wartime-like recruitment posters. Sign-on bonuses of up to $50,000. Massive hiring events. Reduced age requirements. Superman.
It’s all been part of the Trump administration’s campaign to attract new applicants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And so far, it’s brought in more than 110,000 applications, ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan said in an interview with POLITICO. Thirty percent of applicants are military veterans, and roughly 10 percent are coming from other federal law enforcement agencies, Sheahan said.
The speed at which the agency executes the plus up — from 20,000 to 30,000 agents — is a delicate balance. Moving too quickly could amplify concerns that the agency didn’t thoroughly vet and train new agents at a time when ICE faces mounting scrutiny. But moving too slowly could delay the agency’s efforts to meet the White House’s goal of 3,000 daily arrests and 1 million annual deportations.
“We have an opportunity to do this throughout the president’s entire term, and we’ll continue to do that until our ranks are filled,” Sheahan said. “Obviously, the pressure is on nationwide for us to serve the American people, and so we want to make sure we deliver for them.”
ICE’s human resources division is wading through more than 110,000 applications, a flood of interest that spans deportation officer posts, criminal investigator slots with Homeland Security Investigations, and positions for attorneys and legal staff in the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, according to Sheahan. As of July, the agency had extended over 1,000 offers to former ICE agents and officers who departed during the Biden years—a figure that has since grown, an ICE spokesperson confirmed.
[Read More: How Staffing Firms Game Our Immigration System]
