If you’ve always dreamed of working in law enforcement, consider becoming a deportation officer. When most people think of law enforcement, they picture positions in city police departments. There are tons of other options out there, especially the positions that pertain specifically to immigration and customs enforcement. Deportations officers play an important role in overseeing detainees and executing removal activities. Here’s what you need to know about working in this field:
Key Duties of a Deportation Officer
Deportation officers are law enforcement officers who work for the Federal Immigration Customers Enforcement agency that’s commonly referred to as ICE. Before you ever pursue a career, you have to fully grasp what you’ll be doing. After all, if you love what you do, you’ll never feel like you’re working. Here’s what you can expect if you’re hired by ICE:
- Perform duties to investigate foreign nationals and illegal immigrants who could threaten the safety of the public
- Locate, arrest and detain possible threats until they can be prosecuted
- Managing the removal of aliens with other government agencies
- Coordinating with agencies outside of the US and domestic stations to share intelligence throughout the chain
- negotiate with the foreign agencies on actionable offenses so that the offender is prosecuted and pays the penalty
- Interview detainees and suspects so that they can gather evidence and other information that helps the legal case or the efforts to locate another threat
Job Outlook
Job outlook is very important when you’re transitioning into a new field. If you were to study to become a deportation officer and then you found out that the demand in the field was low, you would regret making this decision. Fortunately enough, the U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement agency is the largest agency within the Department of Homeland Security that is in charge of investigations.
Since it’s such a large agency and the Federal government keeps passing stricter and stricter laws on immigration rules and laws, the need for highly experienced deportations officers is high. According to the data and the projections released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job outlook is positive for ICE detention and deportation officers.
Qualifications for the Job
There are several different ways that you can qualify to get hired on as a deportation officer. You’ll need both experience and education to advance within the field. You also need to prove that you possess critical thinking skills and that you’re physically fit like all other officers.
The education and experience requirements vary from region to region. You’ll have to see what the standard is in your area before applying. You can find this in the job listing. It’s not uncommon for the agency to require you to have at least one year of specialized experience in immigration law enforcement or a master’s degree in a qualifying field. A combination of the two will also be considered. After this, you have to complete a 13-week Basic Immigration Law Enforcement Training program to successfully work as an officer, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Academy.
Related Resource: How Do You Become a Criminal Investigator?
If you want to make the nation a safer place and you’d love to travel for work, working in deportation might be a great fit. Deportations officers make between $77,000 and $83,000 per year, depending on the area, according to Glassdoor. If you can keep up with the demanding schedule and you welcome a challenge, start training to become a deportation officer.
