The Trump administration is appealing to its ideological base to fill vacancies at the Department of Homeland Security.
White House deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller announced to his followers on X Monday night that the office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was looking for “homeland defenders” to approve or deny immigration applications.
“Calling all patriots. USCIS is now hiring ‘HOMELAND DEFENDERS,’” Miller wrote. “Your job will be to interview applicants for green cards, work visas and citizenship for approval or denial. Great pay, flexible hours, stay local. Sign up to be a Homeland Defender today!”
It was not immediately clear if “homeland defender” would be a new position at USCIS, or if it would differ in any significant way from the work already done by immigration service officers at the agency. But whether Miller is referring to a new title or an old one, the pay doesn’t seem to be all that he’s chalking it up to be: a batch of new job listings for immigration officers at USCIS describe the starting salary as nearly $35,000. (Job listings for similar roles in other areas of the country pay up to $107,000, according to USCIS’s career website.)
The openings come just weeks before DHS is set to introduce a more rigorous application process for wannabe green card holders. Those changes will go into effect on October 20.
Miller’s coded language paints a vivid picture of exactly who the white nationalist would like to see dictating the demographics of admitted immigrants. The 40-year-old has tasked federal agents with arresting 3,000 undocumented immigrants per day—a quota so astronomical that it has forced the agency to find unconventional subjects of detention, including noncriminal legal residents and even U.S. citizens. The result has been mass, intra-agency dejection: Former employees claim that ICE agents have reportedly never been so miserable.
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