The Department of Defense is putting more pressure on employees to volunteer to support the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration crackdown.
In a February 19 memo sent to civilians across the DOD, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth wrote that he expects “every supervisor to encourage their civilian employees to volunteer. Leadership must continue to promote this detail program and educate their civilian employees on its importance.” The memo, which was titled “Department of War Guidance to Encourage Support to the Department of Homeland Security Southern Border and Internal Immigration Enforcement Missions,” was sent to thousands of civilian DOD employees. The memo was first reported by GovExec and was also viewed by WIRED.
The instructions follow a June 2025 memo in which Hegseth authorized civilian employees to be detailed to DHS. But an Army civilian employee who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation says that there is “definitely more pressure” now, “at least on the supervisory chain.”
The DOD and DHS did not respond to a request for comment.
“I received the obligatory announcement email with the first memo when it came out, and no one has talked about it at all, so much so that I had forgotten about it entirely,” says the Army civilian employee. “I don’t know anyone who has taken the job.” In a statement from August 2025, the DOD claims that “nearly 500 DoD civilians have signed up to participate and bring their skill sets to the border security and immigration enforcement mission at the participating DHS agencies.”
“While details and other short-term professional development opportunities are common for Army civilians, I have never heard of supervisors being REQUIRED to approve such details,” they say.
The employee noted that, as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to cut back on government jobs in the name of “efficiency,” Hegseth has sought to cut the department’s workforce. “I have taken up the duties of three departed colleagues on top of the job I was hired for as a result,” they say. This means it would be difficult for the department to lose anymore staff or for workers to step away from existing projects. The employee described this kind of request to volunteer for another federal agency as “very not common.” It’s not like the Defense Department has any spare time at the moment, either: Hegseth and DOD leadership are currently engaged in directing the US’s role in conflict with Iran.
DOD employees who want to volunteer to be detailed to DHS need to apply through USAJobs. According to the job posting, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is part of DHS, will be reviewing applications. Volunteers will not only be sent to the southern border, but to “several ICE and CBP facilities throughout the interior of the United States.”
While some volunteer roles appear to be mundane tasks like “data entry,” others appear to be in the thick of immigration enforcement operations. These include assisting ICE and CBP in “developing concepts of operation and campaign plans to execute internal arrests and raids as well as patrols along the Southwest Border”; assisting ICE and CBP in “managing the physical flow of detained illegal aliens from arrest to deportation, as well as manage associated data”; and “managing the logistical planning to move law enforcement personnel, operational capabilities, and support equipment across the United States.”
The memo is just the latest in a series of changes across the federal government meant to enforce president Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a new rule would bar families with immigrant members from receiving certain forms of support from the agency, and at the General Services Administration, staff have been asked to assist ICE in procuring new physical spaces across the country.
