In TV ad blitz, ICE makes a play for Atlanta police officers
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is targeting metro Atlanta police officers as part of a highly funded ad campaign to bolster its ranks with new recruits — and fuel the Trump administration’s push toward a mass-scale deportation program.
“Attention, Atlanta law enforcement,” a narrator announces at the beginning of the 30-second recruitment message. The spot goes on to invite officers to “join ICE and help us catch the worst of the worst. Drug traffickers. Gang members. Predators.”
In the first week of October, ICE spent nearly $950,000 on ads targeting the Atlanta area, more than any other city, according to the ad-tracking service AdImpact. Other cities targeted by the campaign, which launched in mid-September, include Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., among others.
The campaign rollout comes in the wake of a massive increase to ICE’s budget.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump’s signature tax-and-spend legislation injected billions in funding into his immigration agenda and made ICE the federal government’s highest-funded law enforcement agency. More than $30 billion was set aside to hire 10,000 additional deportation officers by 2026.
The recruitment ads on television close by referencing some of the benefits ICE is extending to new hires, including a signing bonus of up to $50,000 and student loan forgiveness.
Incentives offered by ICE dwarf those of local police departments, many of which are struggling with staffing shortages — a nationwide phenomenon.
As of May 2025, the Atlanta Police Department’s number of sworn officers was 1,759 — the highest number of filled positions since 2021, Chief Darin Schierbaum told City Council members during a quarterly briefing. But the number is still far from the 2,000-plus sworn officers the city is aiming for.
On its website, the Atlanta Police Foundation, the fundraising arm of the department, notes that, “like many departments nationwide, APD has faced a staffing shortage that impacts response times, officer morale, and citywide coverage.”
Neither the APD nor Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’ office responded to requests for comment from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the federal recruitment program.
The television advertising is part of a campaign that also includes online marketing mentioning the bonus and student loan forgiveness along with an image of Uncle Sam urging to “Choose your mission.”
Other metro Atlanta police forces are also experiencing staffing shortages.
The DeKalb County Police Department is about 260 officers short of its 820 target. Gwinnett’s department has an authorized force of 931 officers but currently employs 749. Cobb County police has 55 vacancies, out of 669 authorized police officer positions.
Signing bonuses on offer pale in comparison to ICE’s.
Gwinnett offers $5,300; DeKalb offers $3,000 for new recruits and $5,000 for experienced officers; Cobb offers $1,500 for new recruits and $2,500 for experienced officers. In July, the Atlanta Police Foundation announced it will offer a $10,000 bonus to experienced officers. The Fulton County Police Department does not offer signing bonuses to new recruits. Its authorized force of 50 officers is fully staffed, a spokeswoman said.
Officers ordered to `stand down?’
The ICE recruitment ads aired in Atlanta insinuate that local law enforcement is hamstrung in acting against illegal immigration because of sanctuary policies.
“In sanctuary cities, you’re ordered to stand down while dangerous illegals walk free,” the narrator says.
But Georgia has prohibited local governments from establishing sanctuary jurisdictions since 2009. A bill passed last year added teeth to the ban, stipulating that sanctuary policies would cost governments state funding and could result in charges against local officials.
In May, the Trump administration released a list of so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions” across the country, describing them as places that obstruct immigration enforcement. Consequences for areas designated as immigrant sanctuaries include the suspension or termination of federal grants and contracts.
Among the hundreds of communities on the list were six Georgia localities: the cities of Atlanta and Athens and the counties of Fulton, DeKalb, Douglas and Athens-Clarke.
But DHS took down the list from its website just days after publication, following a wave of backlash from cities and local law enforcement who questioned the list’s accuracy.
All Georgia jurisdictions named by DHS as sanctuaries reject the designation.
DHS officials declined to explain to the AJC why the Atlanta area was chosen as a target for its ICE recruitment ads.
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