ICE is on a hiring drive, which means more drones, guns and armor are required, contracting records show. It also means more cloud services are needed from the likes of Amazon. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
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In the last two weeks, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has acquired a range of new armor, drones and weaponry as it prepares to launch an “upcoming ICE agent hiring surge,” according to government contracting records.
Since the Trump administration came into office on the back of promises to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, ICE has been on a mission to hire new agents. In August, the DHS claimed over 100,000 people had applied for jobs at ICE. The agency has an open and continuous application portal for deportation officers, the deadline for which was extended from August to the end of October. The site says there are “many vacancies” across the U.S.
That push has come with orders for more equipment: Federal government contracting records from this week show ICE making over a dozen orders with Atlantic Diving Supply (ADS) for a range of goods to boost its Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs division.
ADS, which has long been an arms supplier to military and law enforcement, acts as a middleman, working with government agencies to procure technology from a catalogue of vendors. Public data shows over $4 billion in contracts for things like munitions, communications systems and unmanned aerial vehicles went through the company in 2024, most of those with the Pentagon.
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But DHS’s ICE division is a regular customer too. Contracting databases show that on Tuesday ICE requested to modify a $40 million armor contract with ADS from 2024 to support an imminent influx of new agents. The same day it spent $3 million on new gun sights. A day earlier, in a separate order, it bought $550,000 worth of body armor through ADS.
On September 2, ICE acquired an AI-powered X10D drone made by California-based contractor Skydio through ADS for $25,000, explicitly to be used for “surveillance” in “enforcement operations,” according to a contract description.
X10D is a powerful drone, able to automatically track and pursue a target and “detect objects, vehicles, and humans” on its own. It comes with AI flight assistance and obstacle avoidance, making it suitable for missions inside or around buildings.
ADS has been selling Skydio drones to ICE since at least 2021, with $1.2 million worth of the company’s kit sold to the agency in September last year under the Biden administration, which included an $800,000 order for X10D models. (On Tuesday, ADS also sold 23 Skydio drones to Customs and Border Protection for $615,000, after selling it 10 XD devices in July for $260,000.)
Outside of ADS, this week ICE also spent near $1.6 million on Glock for its handguns, its biggest order with the weapons maker to date. Forbes also reported on a record $10 million contract for Clearview AI’s facial recognition and recent orders for controversial phone location tracking technology.
It’s not just armor, guns and surveillance tech that ICE needs to support its recruitment drive, though. Over the last week it also ordered $450,000 of laptops specifically for new hires on its legal team, and expanded its cloud infrastructure across Google, Microsoft and Amazon systems. The latter’s Amazon Web Services cloud got a record $24 million order.
ICE did not immediately respond to a comment request.
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