Do ICE agents get bonuses for arrests even if people are released? Inspecting the claim

A rumor that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offered “rewards” to agents for making arrests, even if those arrested are released, circulated online in mid-January 2026. 

The rumor spread on social media platforms including X (archived), Facebook (archived) and YouTube, leading to an influx of emails from Snopes readers asking for the truth behind the claim. Some readers specified they’d heard of as much as $3,000 being offered in exchange for each arrest. 

The claim spread as ICE’s presence in Minneapolis continued to spur on protests in the wake of an agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Good on Jan. 7, 2026. 

Reporting from the WSJ covers the ICE incentive structure:

-ICE agents get additional rewards based on their arrests

-Those rewards count even if the person is RELEASED without chargeshttps://t.co/YwbTZlSmRx

— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) January 18, 2026

Snopes could not independently verify the claim that ICE agents receive a monetary bonus or other incentives for meeting arrest quotas, so we have left this claim unrated. A spokesperson for DHS, the department that oversees ICE, told Snopes via email that “this policy has never and never was in effect,” and ICE did not respond to Snopes’ inquiries. 

The rumor originated with a Jan. 17, 2026, report from The Wall Street Journal about ICE’s actions in Minneapolis. 

The WSJ reported that ICE agents “are under pressure from daily arrest quotas that leadership has set at 3,000 a day across the country — the number it would take to reach one million arrests in a year,” and that “officers are rewarded for making arrests, even if the immigrants they take in are later released.” 

The report also said ICE has “never come close” to reaching that daily quota. 

One of the most popular social media posts sharing the claim that ICE offers were receiving rewards for arrests also included a link to the WSJ article. The readers who inquired about a “$3,000 bonus for each arrest” potentially conflated the 3,000-arrest quota with a specific dollar amount, though the WSJ piece did not specify any amount or even whether the alleged rewards were monetary.

What ICE recruitment material says

Recruitment material for ICE available online does not state anything about rewards or bonuses for arrests.  

A website breaking down ICE’s employment benefits, including health care, suicide prevention and retirement options, did not mention any bonus structure or reward system for meeting arrest quotas. 

A Dec. 18, 2025, statement from DHS touting its “most successful federal law enforcement agency recruitment campaign in American history” claimed the agency had hired “11,751 law enforcement officers, criminal investigators, attorneys and mission support staff” since President Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025.

The statement mentioned some of the new benefits it rolled out to encourage applications, including signing bonuses and student loan forgiveness programs, but did not mention any bonuses or rewards for meeting arrest quotas.

In a September 2025 news release, DHS announced “reimbursement opportunities” for local law enforcement agencies that assist in ICE operations that would begin on Oct. 1, 2025. The announcement said the agency would “fully reimburse participating agencies” for the salaries and benefits of each eligible officer trained as part of its task force.

The statement did mention cooperating law enforcement agencies would be eligible for “quarterly monetary performance awards,” but said it was “based on the successful location of illegal aliens provided by ICE and overall assistance to further ICE’s mission to defend the Homeland.” 

The statement appeared to indicate that rewards would be handed out in tiers, with “$1,000 per eligible task force officer” should that agency track down “90 – 100%” of “illegal aliens provided by ICE,” with diminishing dollar amounts of $750 and $500 per eligible task force offer for success rates of 80-89% and 70-79%, respectively. 

It was unclear from the language provided whether these stipulations took into account the arrest quotas reportedly set by the Trump administration. We requested clarification in our messages to DHS and ICE and will update this article if we hear back. 

ICE’s statistics page featured a tool to search the agency’s arrest and detainment numbers, but the data has not been updated since January 2025, before Trump began his second term and increased ICE’s activity and recruitment. 

According to a December 2025 report from Axios, ICE “has been arresting roughly 1,100 people per day in recent weeks, according to government data released via a Freedom of Information Act request from the Deportation Data Project” and noted that the agency averaged 821 arrests from Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, through Oct. 15 of that year.

Axios reported that DHS claimed the number was closer to “1,800 people a day” over that span.

Sources