ICE at the breaking point by Howard Morton

If there were ever a signal flare that an institution has lost its purpose, its standards, and its moral compass, it is this: accepting applicants who can “barely read or write.” That is, according to a recent report, exactly what is happening inside ICE as Noem rushes to bolster the agency’s ranks. And while the headline itself is jarring, the deeper implications are far more disturbing not just for the agency, but for a country that continues to grapple with the consequences of empowering an institution long criticized for cruelty, corruption, and an absence of meaningful oversight.

For years, ICE defenders have insisted that the agency performs an essential national security function. But essential institutions protect their standards, not dilute them to the point where literacy is optional. Essential institutions strengthen qualifications, not erase them to meet a political quota. And above all, essential institutions recognize that the power to detain, deport, separate families, and make life-altering decisions cannot be handed to individuals who may not even be able to properly read the documents they are signing.

The rush to hire underqualified applicants reflects something more troubling than staffing shortages, it reveals an agency that has lost all sense of self-regulation. Standards are supposed to act as guardrails, ensuring that those entrusted with power wield it responsibly. When the guardrails collapse, abuses don’t just become possible; they become inevitable.

And ICE’s history has already shown us what happens when the wrong people are given far too much authority. This is the agency that oversaw family separations, forced hysterectomies on detained women, and enabled a network of private detention centers with repeated accusations of assault and neglect. It’s the agency that allowed medical complaints to be ignored, legal rights to be blurred, and accountability to evaporate whenever the spotlight shifted elsewhere.

If such abuses occurred when ICE claimed to have rigorous standards, what happens when the bar is lowered to the floor?

The answer is simple: the system breaks. Or perhaps more accurately, the system exposes that it was broken long ago.

Lowering employment standards suggests one of two things, either ICE cannot attract qualified candidates because the job is fundamentally repugnant, or leadership has decided that competence is a luxury the agency can no longer afford. Neither interpretation inspires confidence. Both point to an agency that is spiraling, not stabilizing.

But there’s another layer to this crisis. Agencies like ICE rely on public trust to operate effectively. There must be at least a baseline belief that those enforcing immigration laws are trained, vetted, and capable. Once that belief collapses, ICE loses even the fragile legitimacy it once held. How can an agency that hires individuals unable to complete basic written tasks be trusted with interpreting complex immigration cases? How can due process survive when the people executing it may struggle to read the very rules they are supposed to uphold?

The simple truth is this: ICE has never been about methodical law enforcement. It has always been about brute enforcement show of force over comprehension, punishment over procedure. Lowering recruitment standards only confirms that the goal is not justice but manpower. Not professionalism but presence. Not competence but compliance.

This is not an institution that can be “reformed,” because reform assumes the foundation is salvageable. ICE’s foundation has been cracked from the start built hurriedly after 9/11, fused together from overlapping agencies, and weaponized in ways that have consistently created harm rather than security. It was constructed without clarity, managed without accountability, and now operates without even minimal hiring requirements.

So yes, the report that ICE is accepting recruits who can barely read or write says a lot about the agency. But it says even more about why the time for half-measures and timid reforms has passed.

An institution that relies on diminished standards to function is an institution that cannot function at all. One that continues to accumulate power despite its failures is a danger, not a safeguard. And one that fills its ranks with underqualified individuals is not protecting the country it is endangering it.

The rush to hire unprepared applicants is not a sign of temporary desperation; it is the final verdict on ICE’s viability. When an agency responsible for some of the most consequential decisions in a person’s life treats literacy as optional, the conclusion is unavoidable: ICE has no business continuing to exist.

Not tomorrow. Not after another round of reforms. Not after another commission, audit, or congressional hearing.

Dissolving ICE is not a radical solution, it is the only responsible one. A nation that claims to value justice cannot afford an agency that abandons standards, erodes rights, and endangers the very people it purports to protect.

It is long past time to shut the agency down and build something better something accountable, humane, transparent, and worthy of the authority it wields.