ICE — overwhelmed with applicants — leans on cyber talent program to speed tech hiring

ICE’s acting CIO, Dustin Goetz, said the agency will need more personnel as it seeks to meet sweeping deportation and detainment demands set by the White House.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency spearheading the second Trump administration’s sweeping deportation programs, is tapping into a recruitment pipeline run by its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to swiftly boost the intake of cybersecurity and tech talent, a top agency official said Friday.

The agency’s tech shop intends to further “exploit” the Cyber Talent Management System, a special hiring program launched by DHS in 2021 to target skilled cyber professionals for hiring, Acting Chief Information Officer Dustin Goetz said at an ACT-IAC event in Virginia.

“[CTMS] brings in new talent, and that definitely pays them what they’re worth,” he said. The CTMS system is exempt from several competitive hiring and compensation regulations typically required in the ...