When Washington, D.C. resident Josh Sorbe saw The Atlantic’s recent reporting about the failure rate among new Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruits, the Democratic U.S. Senate press secretary and political strategist decided to put it to the test himself — literally.
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In a video posted to social media, Sorbe, who is gay, completed the same physical fitness test that has stumped a third of new ICE trainees in 12 minutes and 19 seconds. The challenge — 15 push-ups, 32 sit-ups, and a 1.5-mile run in under 14 minutes — was part of a Trump administration push to hire 10,000 new deportation officers by next January. Sorbe completed the exercises in less time than the ICE exam allots for the run alone.
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“I was in the middle of a workout, I was lifting, and I ran across an article from The Atlantic that called out ICE’s ‘athletically allergic’ new recruits,” Sorbe, whose day job is press secretary for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Advocate in an interview on Thursday. “I read the test and I was like, one, I know I can do this. Two, it’s a good opportunity to show just what the reforms that have been happening within ICE since [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem took over the department and how it’s very relatable, and it’s a good way to capture attention to talk about it.”
The Atlantic report detailed that more than one-third of ICE recruits have failed the agency’s physical-readiness exam after the Trump administration shortened training programs and relaxed screening requirements.
In his video, Sorbe mocked the administration’s recruitment push while running on a treadmill. “MAGA is so desperate to villainize immigrants that they’re willing to try to let anyone become an ICE agent,” he said in the clip. “The standards to join ICE are so, so, so low.”
“I’ve been very frustrated with ICE ever since the Trump administration started escalating immigration enforcement efforts,” Sorbe told The Advocate. “You think about the bureaucracy of a big federal agency — rules and tests and things that are oftentimes written and not seen. Well, in the last month and a half, we’ve been able to see them a lot more of what’s happening in Chicago and in Los Angeles and in D.C.”
Under Trump’s mass deportation program, cities with Democratic mayors in states with Democratic governors have seen masked ICE agents snatching people, including American citizens, out of cars and homes. Violent scenes with menacing plainclothes officers terrorizing communities have spread across social media as residents film what is happening, often at great peril to themselves.
Josh Sorbe at the gym.courtesy Josh Sorbe
At the end of this video, Sorbe added, “Immigrants make America really f***ing great.” Sorbe graduated from the University of South Dakota, the same state where Noem served as governor before joining the Trump administration.
Sorbe said his video wasn’t planned but quickly became a moment. “It’s about a shift in culture,” he said. “Democrats are fit, Democrats are hot, and we’re tired of Republicans trying to lay claim [to health and fitness] when it’s so demonstrably false.”
He added, “These targeted advertisements that [Department of Homeland Security spokesperson] Trisha McLaughlin is lauding online — who’s going to respond to a 1950s-esque racist ad? It’s going to be people who appeal to their base. And now we’re seeing that they’re failing not only the fitness test at record rates, with more than 30 percent failing, but they’re also failing open-book written exams at rates that hadn’t been seen before. It’s laughable. And I think it speaks exactly to the type of people that comprise the MAGA base.”
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Sorbe said he views the “ICE Agent Challenge” as both a form of political commentary and a way to reclaim fitness culture from the far right. “I am a very passionate Democrat who believes that everyone ought to be treated with a basic level of respect that ICE is not demonstrating,” he said. “I am a fitness instructor and a marathoner. I was a D1 athlete for a long time, and this was a perfect opportunity to totally debunk the idea that Republicans can lay claim here.”
He added that his video caught the attention of people inside the Department of Homeland Security. “I did get a text message from a friend saying that someone they knew at DHS, I’m not going to go deeper than that, saw the video, and they were kind of pissed,” Sorbe said. “I’m like, you know what? If I were called out this effectively, I’d probably be a little bit pissed too.”
Josh Sorbe partipates in a 10-mile run.courtesy Josh Sorbe
In his interview, Sorbe described the Trump administration’s recruitment push as “DEI for the MAGA base.” “I don’t want this push or this video per se to be taken as anti-ICE,” he said. “If you are a dedicated person who really wants to be a law enforcement professional and serve our country as an ICE agent, absolutely. That is an incredible passion to have, and you should definitely consider a career in public service in that way.”
He added, “When they’re receiving orders from MAGA drag queen-in-chief Kristi Noem and lowering standards for them to come in, those are not going to be serious law enforcement professionals.”
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Sorbe said his frustration runs deeper than fitness. “The state of the politics around ICE is so devastating,” he said. “Every day at work, we’re talking about what’s happening in Chicago now, but it’s Chicago right now — it could easily be any other major city or any other place that Donald Trump sees as an enemy that could be subjected to this next. Imagine if this were happening in your community, how you would feel, and pay attention and speak out against it any way you can.”
The viral post has already inspired others to join in. “I coach HIIT classes in D.C. in my free time, and a couple of my clients actually asked, ‘Are we going to do the ICE agent challenge today?’” Sorbe said. “In the back of my head, I was like, ‘What if the ICE agent challenge should totally become a thing?’ I would love it if a base of fit liberals who are passionate about this issue start taking it and doing it the same way that I do.”
For Sorbe, the challenge is about more than exercise. “There are two components here,” he said. “It’s about principles and it’s about performance. MAGA is very, very good at performing, but they have no principles. Democrats are incredibly principled. They’re on the right side of issues, and we need to be better at taking the opportunities to perform.”
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