In a sweeping series of moves that have sent shockwaves through Washington, the Trump administration announced on August 20, 2025, a dramatic downsizing of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and an unprecedented hiring surge at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These efforts, officials say, are part of a broader campaign to overhaul federal agencies, reshape national security priorities, and deliver on campaign promises of government efficiency and immigration enforcement.
The most headline-grabbing change came from ODNI, where Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declared a more than 40% reduction in workforce and a budget cut exceeding $700 million annually. “Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence,” Gabbard said in a statement, according to the Associated Press. She added, “Ending the weaponization of intelligence and holding bad actors accountable are essential to begin to earn the American people’s trust which has long been eroded.”
The cuts target not only the agency’s size but also its scope, with the Foreign Malign Influence Center—created in 2022 in response to concerns about foreign election interference—set to have its core functions absorbed by other government entities. While the center was originally scheduled to sunset in 2028, Gabbard’s plan effectively terminates it now. According to ODNI, this move is part of a broader effort to rethink how the United States tracks foreign threats to its elections, a topic that has become increasingly fraught since intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential race.
The Foreign Malign Influence Center had played a key role in debunking disinformation, including a Russian video that falsely depicted the destruction of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania ahead of the 2024 election. Gabbard, however, argued that the center’s “hyper-focus” on election work had been “used by the previous administration to justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition.” Its core tasks, she asserted, would be merged into other government operations to eliminate redundancy.
Not everyone agrees with that assessment. Emerson Brooking, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told the Associated Press, “It wasn’t redundant, it was supposed to solve for redundancy.” He explained that the center’s job—parsing intelligence assessments across the government and notifying decision-makers—was “both important and extremely boring.”
Reactions in Congress fell along familiar partisan lines. Senator Tom Cotton, Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised the downsizing as “an important step towards returning ODNI to that original size, scope, and mission. And it will help make it a stronger and more effective national security tool for President Trump.” On the other side, Senator Mark Warner, the panel’s top Democrat, pledged to “conduct rigorous oversight to ensure any reforms strengthen, not weaken, our national security,” expressing skepticism given Gabbard’s “track record of politicizing intelligence.”
This move is just the latest in a series of sweeping changes under the Trump administration. In recent months, the White House revoked the security clearances of dozens of current and former officials and declassified documents intended to challenge longstanding intelligence conclusions about Russian interference. The administration has also disbanded FBI and State Department offices focused on tracking foreign influence and misinformation, and made cuts at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which oversees the nation’s critical infrastructure—including election systems.
Meanwhile, a parallel transformation is underway at ICE, where the administration’s recruitment drive has reached wartime proportions. According to POLITICO, ICE deputy director Madison Sheahan reported that more than 110,000 applications have poured in, spurred by aggressive outreach campaigns featuring sign-on bonuses up to $50,000, massive hiring events, and even Superman-themed recruitment posters.
“This is the first time ICE has ever had a major plus up,” Sheahan said. “That huge presence that we’re seeing from former military and former federal law enforcement—those are people that have been vetted their entire career and have done great work for this country their entire career. And so having them a part of our ranks is really going to be helpful when it comes to a lot of the criticism that we’re getting right now.”
Of the 110,000 applicants, 30% are military veterans and about 10% come from other federal law enforcement agencies. The administration’s target is to increase ICE’s ranks from 20,000 to 30,000 agents, aiming for 3,000 daily arrests and 1 million annual deportations—a scale not seen since the rapid post-9/11 expansion of Customs and Border Protection under President George W. Bush.
By July 2025, ICE had already issued over 1,000 offers to former agents who had left during the Biden administration, with that number continuing to grow. Sheahan emphasized the importance of balancing speed and thoroughness: “We have an opportunity to do this throughout the president’s entire term, and we’ll continue to do that until our ranks are filled. Obviously, the pressure is on nationwide for us to serve the American people, and so we want to make sure we deliver for them.”
The recruitment blitz, however, has drawn fierce criticism from Democrats, immigration advocates, and even some law enforcement officials. Critics worry that the rush to fill 10,000 new jobs could lead to the hiring of unqualified recruits and a repeat of past mistakes, such as those that plagued CBP’s rapid expansion in the early 2000s. “The last thing you want is somebody who has no law enforcement experience whatsoever and is gung ho about working for ICE under Trump,” former senior ICE official Scott Shuchart told POLITICO. “That’s the worst of all worlds.”
ICE officials insist that the process includes extensive background checks and that they are not lowering standards. “We’re trying to be judicious. We’re background checking people. We’re not taking crazies,” a Trump administration official, speaking anonymously, told POLITICO. “There’s this myth out there that we’re just taking everybody, and we decline a lot of positions.”
Public opinion remains skeptical. A July Quinnipiac University poll found that 57% of voters disapprove of how ICE is enforcing immigration law, while a CNN poll that same month showed that 53% of Americans opposed increasing ICE’s budget by billions of dollars. The agency’s aggressive tactics and high-profile recruitment campaign have fueled heated debates in Congress and across the country.
The Trump administration’s dual approach—slashing intelligence budgets while ramping up enforcement resources—reflects a broader vision of government reform: leaner intelligence, tougher borders, and a willingness to upend the status quo. As the dust settles from these seismic changes, the nation’s security apparatus and immigration system are set to look very different than they did just a few years ago. Whether these moves will lead to greater efficiency and safety, or unintended consequences and new vulnerabilities, remains to be seen as the administration presses forward with its controversial agenda.
