ICE was going to pay bounties for quick deportations.
On Tuesday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced in an internal email that it would offer cash bonuses to agents for deporting people quickly, an incentive meant to motivate the staff to speed up President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
Less than four hours later, the agency abruptly canceled what was supposed to be a 30-day pilot program.
“PLEASE DISREGARD,” Liana J. Castano, an official in ICE’s field operations division, said in a follow-up email to agency offices around the country.
The bonus program that ended on Tuesday almost as quickly as it began had been described as a 30-day pilot, according to documents reviewed by The Times. Under its terms, ICE would hand out $200 bonuses for each immigrant deported within seven days of being arrested and $100 for those deported within two weeks, according to an initial memo signed by Ms. Castano that was sent to the directors and deputy directors of ICE’s field offices across the country.
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