ICE officials have privately come under fire for failing to meet White House daily arrest quotas

Officials from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are reportedly pleading for former agents to return to service as the agency, recently made the largest law enforcement operation in the country, struggles to keep pace with the Trump administration's unprecedented arrest quotas.

In May, White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Trump's "border czar" Tom Homan directed ICE agents to arrest 3,000 people they believed to be undocumented immigrants each day, whether or not they had a criminal record. Miller told agents to search anywhere and everywhere for migrants, leading to ICE appearances at routine immigration checks, courts and worksites around the U.S.

The "urgent call" issued by officials to former agents, deemed "Operation Return to Mission," offers a bonus up to $50,000 to those who rejoin ICE ranks. “You served the United States of America with distinction and honor,” the message reads. “Now, your country calls upon you to serve once more.”

Protests erupted across the U.S. earlier this year as legions of masked, armored ICE agents were witnessed detaining potential immigrants in their homes, places of work and public areas and driving them away in unmarked vehicles.

Their escalated presence in cities around the country comes as part of Trump's promised crackdown on illegal immigration, the reality of which many critics have compared to state-sponsored kidnapping and deportation based on racial profiling without adequate due process or accountability.

ICE, an agency that once operated with a set of guidelines focused on public safety and national security threats, has pivoted under Trump's command as the agency responsible for his promise to carry out mass deportations.

Some agents welcomed the transition, which allowed them more discretion on who they could arrest, according to CNN. Others have felt pressured by the administration to carry out more arrests than are feasible, including targeting people who have no criminal records.

The agents carrying out the orders have been condemned by citizens and many local lawmakers, who say that their failure to properly identify themselves is an intentional shirking of accountability as they rove American streets searching for immigrants. Several criminals have donned attire similar to ICE agents — body armor, face masks, eyewear and baseball caps — to carry out robberies, break-ins and murder.

In Minnesota last month, one man dressed as an ICE agent shot dead a Democratic Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband and seriously wounded Democratic Senator John Hoffman and his wife in what state officials described as a "political assassination."

Todd Lyons, ICE's acting director, told CBS News this week that while he is not a "proponent" of his agents wearing masks, he will allow the practice to continue due to alleged concerns about their safety. He also confirmed that the agency plans to use personal data from government programs like Medicaid to track immigrants suspected of living in the U.S. illegally.

Though he claimed to be using this data to hunt for the "worst of the worst," a report from the Deportation Data Project found that weekly ICE arrests of immigrants with no criminal convictions have surged more than six times the amount since before Trump retook office.