A former police officer who was hired and trained by ICE — and was later turned away from the job in an email saying he was "too old" — has revealed that ICE's hiring surge under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has prompted more than 10,000 equal opportunity legal claims.
A new investigation from PunchUp, a Substack launched by Daily Beast journalist and broadcaster Tom Latchem, unveiled how Noem's claim that the department was removing its age cap was just a performance and not the actual case. The subject of the investigation is a 68-year-old retired Ohio cop identified by his first name, Doug.
Two DHS officials reportedly told him that the agency was buried under about 10,000 similar claims, PunchUp reported. It's unclear how many were related to age discrimination.
In August 2025, 59-year-old Dean Cain, who played Superman in the TV series "Lois & Clark," was featured in a PR campaign urging "qualified candidates" to apply with "no age limit."
Prior to the announcement, the mandatory retirement age for ICE agents was 60 years old.
"Doug, who said he served 23 'exemplary' years in law enforcement before retiring in 2019, applied on July 30 last year—three weeks before Noem’s announcement—anticipating the change," PunchUp reported. "Six days later, he said he was 'thrilled' to receive a tentative offer for a desk-based role in Atlanta, with a $127,000 base salary and a $20,000 annual bonus. With overtime and his existing pension, he calculated he could comfortably clear $250,000 a year."
He described the hiring process for ICE as "a masterclass in dysfunction." He was supposed to start his job in Indianapolis, then he was told it would be Atlanta and his start date was shifted to Oct. 20. Then he received a shocking email just after midnight on what was supposed to be his first day on the job.
"Four days later, a one-paragraph email pulled the rug entirely: 'It has been determined that you do not meet the eligibility for [the] age requirement for the position; therefore, the offer of employment is rescinded,'" according to PunchUp.
At that point, he had already been sworn in and taken a virtual course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, putting in four to five hours daily for several weeks as he read through the required 400-page training manual. He called it "critical sensitive."
"In the wrong hands,” he told PunchUp, “it could be used nefariously.”
On Nov. 4, he filed EEO complaints against ICE and DHS to try and gain his job back or seek back pay and bonuses for more than $40,000. He got a call back from an EEO officer on Dec. 4.
"According to Doug, she sounded 'exasperated,' said the agency was buried in thousands of similar cases, and told him that Noem had never actually possessed the power to scrap the age cap—it was an HR issue. Doug said another HR official told him the cap had never been lifted," The Beast reported.