# Why do Latinos join ICE?  ## Episode metadata - Episode title: Why do Latinos join ICE? - Show: Code Switch - Owner / Host: NPR - Guests: [Geraldo Cadava](https://share.snipd.com/person/a61d6e9d-9cb6-4273-b8ce-e7d60b7623e7) - Episode publish date: 2026-05-20 - Episode AI description: Geraldo Cadava, historian and professor of Latina/o studies at Northwestern, studies Latino political identity. He unpacks why many Latinos join immigration enforcement. Conversation covers representation in CBP and ICE, online backlash calling officers traitors, recruitment pipelines from schools, economic incentives, and how belief in the mission and training shape career choices. - Mentioned books: [The line becomes a river](https://share.snipd.com/book/a387b61d-10e8-4e20-8f8e-d848a05219da) by [Francisco Cantú](https://share.snipd.com/person/2fc54861-f008-4afa-b334-e28326c03b0e) - Duration: 32:32 - Episode URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/episode/180b9740-c1ad-4b1d-8267-151db9f03590) - Show URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/show/010bc8a0-a9fc-452a-9c6e-774dfb093859) - Export date: 2026-07-28T13:37:53 ## Snips ### [Latino Representation Is Substantial In Immigration Agencies](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5f2b86a5-e91e-48db-b3cd-378b804f3a9c) 🎧 04:30 - 05:10 (00:40) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/7575e457-543e-42b8-bd11-ea2bb6682a94" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Nearly half of Customs and Border Protection agents are Hispanic and about 20% of ICE agents are Latino, according to DHS numbers confirmed by Geraldo Cadava. - These proportions surprised many observers and prompted questions about why Latinos join immigration enforcement in large numbers. #### 💬 Quote > Nearly half of all Customs and Border Patrol agents are Hispanic Americans and [t]hey put the number of Latinos in ICE at 20%. > — Geraldo Cadava Geraldo Cadava on DHS workforce demographics #### 📚 Transcript **Gene Demby:** is about why so many Latinos are drawn to careers in immigration enforcement. Part of what was striking to me is that the percentages are broadly the same, regardless of which agency you're talking about. **Geraldo Cadava:** The main difference is whether you're talking about the southwest border region or nationally. I mean, all of these agencies in the southwest border region, it's like half of the force is Latino. It's a lot. It's thousands and thousands of people. It's thousands and thousands of Latinos. We reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, which ICE and Border Patrol are under, **Gene Demby:** to check Geraldo's numbers, and they confirmed it. They said that nearly half of all Customs and Border Patrol agents are Hispanic Americans. And they put the number of Latinos in ICE at 20%. --- ### [Agents Frame Enforcement As Community Service](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9688d800-654a-4c76-a7e2-79e4a2791337) 🎧 09:22 - 10:15 (00:52) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/a81951fd-d30b-438f-8dfc-7182e4208521" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Many Latino agents describe their work as protecting and serving their communities, keeping drugs and bad actors off the streets. - They frame Border Patrol work as a service job, mirroring police rhetoric like protect and serve, not as betrayal. #### 💬 Quote > They saw their role as protecting the community and defending the community and keeping bad guys off the streets, keeping drugs out of their communities. > — Geraldo Cadava Geraldo Cadava on how Latino agents describe their mission #### 📚 Transcript **Geraldo Cadava:** the thing that struck me the most was how they kind of flipped on its head this idea that they were harming their community because they were saying quite the opposite, that they saw their role as protecting the community and defending the community and keeping bad guys off the streets, keeping drugs out of their communities, those sorts of things. And so, you know, the themes that kept coming up all the time were how they saw themselves as defenders of the community, keeping bad guys and drugs off the streets. They also thought that working in the Border Patrol was a kind of, they called it a service job. They were serving their communities. And **Gene Demby:** that's not too different from the ways that cops talk about their jobs, **Geraldo Cadava:** right? Protect and serve, right? Yeah, no, it is. --- ### [High School Recruit Reports Pay Versus Community Pushback](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6968fb61-fd4a-41ce-a8ae-aed77c45505c) 🎧 12:48 - 13:57 (01:09) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/239b400a-62b8-4082-980f-d30095af5bbb" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - A Horizon High student interviewed a Latino Border Patrol officer who cited good pay and medical benefits as the job's positives and community hostility as the negative. - The student was conflicted but ultimately still chose to pursue Border Patrol work despite reservations. #### 💬 Quote > The good of Border Patrol is a good paying career which pays well financially and good medical insurance to take care of your family. The bad is a long hours. > — Agent Flores (quoted by Geraldo Cadava) Agent Flores interviewed by a student in At The Ready documentary #### 📚 Transcript **Gene Demby:** I interviewed Agent Flores. So **Geraldo Cadava:** I **Gene Demby:** asked, what are the good and bads about being in Border Patrol? So he answered with, the good of Border Patrol is a good paying career, which pays well financially and good medical insurance to take care of your family. The bad is a long hours. Also being Latino and living on the border city, civilians see us as the enemy and they don't see the good we do for the community. We provide gifts for low-income families for Christmas and turkeys for Thanksgiving, yet they see us as family wreckers. I've been yelled at, cursed at, spit on and punched at just because of what I do. So **Geraldo Cadava:** she came back and reported this to her other students, to the peers, to her peers, and she didn't like it. I mean, she said it gives me, it gives me pause. It makes me think about whether this is what I want to do, but she still ultimately decides to do it. And **B.A. Parker:** now that you had this conversation with this particular person in this field, are you sure this is something that you really wanted to, despite the questions that you asked him and the responses he gave you? Yeah, I don't know, it still interests me. --- ### [Some Join To Reform Then Become Critics](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7eb257d8-8904-4fe7-9532-adebf334f111) 🎧 14:34 - 14:50 (00:16) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/c96f00c2-45b3-472f-b3f6-7e3eedd3133b" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Some Latino agents join hoping to change the agency from within but later leave when they find reform impossible, becoming critics like Francisco Cantu. - This path shows recruitment doesn't uniformly produce lifelong defenders of enforcement; outcomes vary. #### 💬 Quote > Francisco Cantu... took a job with the border patrol to try to change it from within, ultimately decided that it wasn't possible and left and has become a critic of the agency. > — Geraldo Cadava Geraldo Cadava on agents who leave and critique Border Patrol #### 📚 Transcript **Geraldo Cadava:** I think that is one response that might be representative of some number of Latino agents who leave the forest. They realize that they're up against something too big. They can't change it from within. So they leave and critique it from the outside. --- ### [Economic Opportunity Drives Recruitment Along The Border](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f6b68629-2975-424e-8f72-2403a3bf708c) 🎧 15:20 - 17:10 (01:50) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/5554a89a-2a6b-4f2b-8ac3-124fd0d20893" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Economic incentives matter: Border Patrol jobs near the border offer starting salaries around $50,000–$60,000 and stability attractive to families. - Families often celebrate these careers as payoff for sacrifices, making recruitment socially normalized in border towns. #### 💬 Quote > She's showing him a letter saying that starting salaries are like $50,000, $60,000. So it's definitely a combination of financial interests. > — Geraldo Cadava Geraldo Cadava on pay and family support influencing career choice #### 📚 Transcript **Gene Demby:** Like the documentary says that Border Patrol jobs, immigration enforcement jobs are some of the few jobs available along the border that pay close to the median American salary. Right. So how much of that is about things like that, financial incentive versus, you know, maybe cultural reasons, like the fact that a large proportion of border immigration enforcement agents are Latinos probably also a really attractive sort of normalizing component here, too. I **Geraldo Cadava:** think all of these are plausible and apply to some segment of the border patrol. Even the argument that these are Latinos who, you know, may be self-loathing and have abandoned their community. I mean, I don't even know what that means really because, well, is it about light skin color? You know, can be of any skin color. Is it about the fact that they speak English instead of Spanish? Well, all of these markers of what it means to be an authentic Latino and then abandon your community, I'm not even really sure what they mean. I also think the argument about pay, that's important. I mean, people got to put food on the table. I remember one of the members of the high school club in El Paso, she showed her father, who was a Mexican immigrant who spoke Spanish, and on the one hand said like, oh, when I hear you talk about your ambition to join the Border Patrol, I think that all of the investments I've made in your future are finally starting to pay off because he's excited that she's going to join the Border Patrol. But at the same time that they're talking about that, she's showing him a letter saying that starting salaries are like $50,000, $60,000. So, you know, it's definitely a combination of financial interests. --- ### [Talk To Agents Instead Of Dismissing Them](https://share.snipd.com/snip/18d9717a-45bc-478d-b55b-41e571884c3d) 🎧 18:32 - 19:38 (01:06) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/9e329f21-7c2b-4eae-ab1d-4c6bf7ad674a" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Instead of blaming individuals who join enforcement, engage them to understand why they made that career choice and what they believe. - Recognize economic motives but also grapple with the uncomfortable reality that many genuinely support the agency's mission. #### 💬 Quote > Why are you blaming a person... Who believes in the work they do for the job they take? Why not try to engage with them about why it was important to them to make that career choice? > — Geraldo Cadava Geraldo Cadava urging engagement with individuals who join enforcement #### 📚 Transcript **Geraldo Cadava:** We can think that that's a bad situation. We can think that it's a bad thing for society, that we have a kind of structure in place in the southern border region that feeds or funnels people into the border patrol. We can be upset with the fact that there are criminal justice studies, schools, departments, that have hundreds of majors, and one of the desired outcomes of those majors is for their students to go into careers in the border patrol, careers in the military, careers in the police. We can critique that. We can be upset with that. But I don't think the argument is really with the individuals making that choice. You know, why are you blaming a person, an individual who believes in the work they do for the job they take? Why not try to engage with them about why it was important to them to make that career choice in the first place. Because if we're making a decision based on economic rationale, we can all accept that because we all need to make ends meet. --- ### [High School Criminal Justice Clubs Feed Enforcement Pipelines](https://share.snipd.com/snip/30f3968b-036b-4c87-af98-76f40ecf8485) 🎧 22:44 - 27:58 (05:13) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/dbdb92c0-da49-486f-bac2-549e46b5ff12" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Schools run Criminal Justice clubs and competitions (900 in Texas) that mimic raids and train teens with law-enforcement skills, creating a school-to-career pipeline. - Teachers with law-enforcement backgrounds coach kids and agencies recruit at career fairs, normalizing the path. #### 💬 Quote > These clubs exist at 900 high schools in Texas alone. They train for competitions and have officers come in to recruit and run career fairs. > — Geraldo Cadava Geraldo Cadava describing the Criminal Justice Studies programs and recruitment #### 📚 Transcript **Geraldo Cadava:** I would first recommend to all of your listeners to go watch the documentary called At The Ready by a director named Mazie Crow. And it's about the Criminal Justice Studies High School or the Criminal Justice Studies Club at Horizon High School. And one of the things that she notes in the documentary is that these clubs exist at 900 high schools in Texas alone. This was in 2018. So I can't promise you that it's still 900. And this documentary is about one of them. The kind of plot line of the documentary is that this particular club is preparing for a competition. And the competition is against other schools, other criminal justice clubs at other high schools. And yeah, they have teams that are given a particular task. There's a narco trafficker in this building. You have to go in and arrest him, minimizing casualties to your side. Remember, **Gene Demby:** how much time do you need before you can go inside on a no-knock? 15 seconds. 15 seconds. And no-knock. **Geraldo Cadava:** Police the work of Border Patrol or any kind of law enforcement agency busting into a building with automatic rifles, you know, trying to get the bad guy. So the other thing that was striking to me is that the teachers, they're also teachers at the high school, but all of them have backgrounds in law enforcement. They spent like 20 or 30 years in the El Paso Police Department. But, you know, they say things to them like, well, if you don't shoot first, you're going to get shot. If he does a gun and he goes like that, do I shoot? **Gene Demby:** Yeah, anytime somebody raises a gun to you, you shoot him. He's going to say, well, I didn't know they were cops. That's for the courts to decide. Police, drop it, drop it, drop it. And you got to plug it, **Geraldo Cadava:** bang bang. And just the idea that this is what they're teaching high school kids is bananas to me. Maybe they're right. Maybe in that world, it is shoot or get shot. Maybe they're right. But the idea that that's what they're teaching high school students was bananas. I think one interesting thing that the current teacher of the Horizon High Club told me is that in their minds, they're really helping at-risk youth. And their idea is that if these kids didn't participate in the criminal justice club and seek careers in the military or the police force, which they think would give them discipline, they would be out in the streets being gang members themselves. So again, they think that they are keeping kids off the streets and providing a valuable service to the school and to the community. And it's funny, in the process of reporting, I was emailing with public affairs officers at the cbp and dhs and one of them turned me on to the youtube channel where dhs and cbp post all of their recruitment videos and it is like real world versions of the video game-like quality of these competitions. Because, you know, a lot of the actors in the recruitment videos are Latinas or Latinos. And they're talking about, like, the excitement of the job, how they, you know, busted up this drug shipment in Miami and kind of took however many kilos of cocaine off of a boat. Are you proud to be a CBPO? I'm **B.A. Parker:** definitely proud to be a CBPO. We are the front line of whoever is coming in, whatever is coming in. You **Gene Demby:** never know what you're going to get any given day. Could be on a ship looking for **Geraldo Cadava:** drugs, could pop a container and there's people hiding in there. You know, there's an excitement to it. And so it's almost like the real world version of what students in these high schools got to train for. So there's also like the excitement of the job. **Gene Demby:** Which is in keeping of like the very specific ways that even the military like advertises **Geraldo Cadava:** to **Gene Demby:** kids, right? Right. For sure. It's like very video gamey, you know, like the way that you see ads on, you know, sporting events. And you're like, oh, this is very clearly targeted to like 17, 18 year olds. You want to do something fun and exciting? You know, you get to see the Apache helicopters and stuff like that. **Geraldo Cadava:** Yeah, exactly. --- ### [Recruitment Uses Excitement And Representation To Appeal To Teens](https://share.snipd.com/snip/81746dfa-6095-49ca-9d02-ef9a76ddc0ea) 🎧 28:20 - 29:11 (00:51) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/8f24cca3-5de1-4869-a27c-a4d00ef1bde1" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Recruitment materials and DHS videos present enforcement work as exciting and heroic, often featuring Latino officers to attract local applicants. - The video-game like framing and focus on action appeal directly to teenagers considering careers. #### 💬 Quote > A lot of the actors in the recruitment videos are Latinas or Latinos and they're talking about the excitement of the job, how they busted up this drug shipment. > — Geraldo Cadava Geraldo Cadava on DHS and CBP recruitment videos #### 📚 Transcript **Geraldo Cadava:** these competitions that they're training for, they also have representatives from the Border Patrol officials at DHS come in and talking to them. You know, they have career fair days where each of these agencies, again, like police, but also the military, but also the Border Patrol, they set up booths in a high school auditorium where they talk about the desirability of the job and the benefits of the job. And there they do focus on money. They do focus on the excitement. They do focus on future career opportunities, how they're training in particular skills that will be useful to them later on in life and other pursuits. I guess indoctrination would be the more kind of nefarious way to put it. Others could just say job recruitment or something like that, you know? --- ### [Latino Identity Is Diverse So Political Views Vary Widely](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8c9cd65e-d87b-497d-ab81-e499d5c904ff) 🎧 30:15 - 34:50 (04:35) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/1ca87051-c91a-494f-926c-3df553e606a8" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Latino identity is broad and contested; being Latino often rests on self-identification rather than ancestry, so political diversity within the group is expected. - Dismissing Latino agents as 'traitors' ignores this pluralism and the many legitimate reasons people choose these jobs. #### 💬 Quote > If your version of what it means to be Latino is some sort of political litmus test, that's going to immediately exclude 30, 40% of Latinos who see themselves as Latino but don't share your politics. > — Geraldo Cadava Geraldo Cadava on defining Latino identity and political diversity #### 📚 Transcript **Gene Demby:** lot of your work seems to be about sort of complicating the way we think about sort of Latinoness as like a coherent identity and this idea that people feel themselves as part of a shared uh community right it's it's one thing to say like oh well latinos who join ice uh uh we can be dismissed their sort of ideological uh motivations for joining ice because um these people are uncle tom's or uncle tamas is one of the commenters you quote says right these people don't like other people in their community. But like part of the question here is like whether people see themselves as a coherent community to begin with, right? It's like, do you see the people that you're locking up or taking into custody as part of your community? It seems like that's a giant assumption that we're making to begin with, right? Yes, **Geraldo Cadava:** yeah, absolutely. I think that's right. I think, yeah, you almost have to take a step back and say that everything I've heard or seen from a Latino Border Patrol agent, and again, since I didn't talk to them, there's plenty of tape out there from CNN interviewing current Border Patrol agents or the head of a local Border Patrol union chapter in Texas talking about what his views of immigration are. everything I've heard them say in one way or another falls under the very broad umbrella of what it means to be Latino. But that is not univocal. Like, it's very different things. Some of them are the most rabid anti-immigrant Trump supporters, you can imagine, who are happy to be on the front line deporting immigrants. Some of them are the people who think they want to change the institution from within. Some of them totally believe in its mission. And I think, this is just my opinion, and I think this is where I might differ with others who think a lot about Latino identity. I mean, I've had arguments with colleagues, for example, about what does it mean to be Latino? Is it fundamentally about like heritage and like going to get an ancestry DNA test that shows your X percent indigenous, X african x percent peruvian x percent chilean and then that's what it's about it's about ancestry and the two people i was talking to happen to be one is a puerto rican from humboldt uh humboldt park here and in chicago another was a mexican-american from east. And both of them, independently of one another, were like, oh no, Latino isn't about ancestry or heritage. It's about a commitment to a shared political project. So those are two wildly different ideas about what it even means to be Latino. And so to me, it's like, if your version of what it means to be Latino is some sort of political litmus test, that's going to immediately exclude 30, 40% of Latinos who see themselves as Latino, call themselves Latino, but don't share your politics. So to me, whatever Latino means, the umbrella has to be broad enough to include all sorts of conflicting ideas under it. And I think in general, I'm someone who probably walks up to the point where you throw your hands up and say, Latinos don't even exist, because how can you possibly define it? But as soon as I get up to that edge of saying, like, Latino doesn't exist, I immediately take a step back, because I realize that there are millions of people for whom being Latino matters. There's a report that the Pew Hispanic Center issues every year, and their definition of it is, you are Latino if you say you're Latino, and you are not Latino if you say you're not Latino. And that's it. And I find that so interesting, because it makes it sound like being Latino is purely a matter of self-identification. --- Created with [Snipd](https://www.snipd.com) | Highlight & Take Notes from Podcasts