Forty-nine floors above Oklahoma City, nearly two dozen local immigration attorneys and legal aides gathered in the swanky Vast restaurant atop Devon Energy Center.
The annual meeting of local members of the American Immigration Lawyers Association with a liaison from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement usually serves as a space to voice concerns and ask questions about new policy. But this meeting took a turn as multiple Oklahoma City attorneys say they were pitched to work for ICE, complete with discussions of incentives that included handsome signing bonuses and student debt repayment.
It’s not unusual for attorneys to get updates from federal immigration officials. Before the Trump administration, vice chair of the national ICE liaison committee for AILA and local attorney Michelle Edstrom said these meetings with immigration officials used to be very fruitful.
“Now, they’re not allowed to have that kind of dialogue with private attorneys like they used to,” she said.
But the meeting held in September, labeled as “community engagement” by representatives for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations sector, provided an early glimpse of what is turning into an aggressive expansion of ICE operations in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City.
Some who attended the meeting left convinced it was nothing more than a sales pitch aimed at recruiting local attorneys to work in a new 70-person office opening at Corporate Tower, 101 N. Robinson Ave.
Records show that not long after the September meeting, the Department of Homeland Security signed a $3.8 million, five-year lease for the 17,129 square feet office inside Corporate Tower that will be home to attorneys working for ICE.
The new ICE legal office is located next to the recently opened Clara Luper National Sit-In Plaza. The civil rights landmark stands in contrast to demonstrations and lawsuits sparked across the country over the agency’s actions, most visibly seen in reports of masked agents stopping people of color, including U.S. citizens and people in the country legally, as part of a massive search for undocumented residents.
“Logistically, to me, that just doesn’t make sense,” said Sen. Michael Brooks-Jimenez (D-Oklahoma City), who is also an immigration attorney. He described the expansion to Oklahoma City as “unusual,” and expressed concern that “what could be one of the largest law firms in Oklahoma City would be a government-run law firm to institute deportations.”
Meeting described as ‘super weird’
The buffet-style lunch meeting with ICE officials at Vast late last year attracted about 20 attorneys and legal aids. In the Civic Room, a private dining area overlooking the city skyline and Oklahoma River, immigration officials shared their intentions to develop operations in Oklahoma City.
Braxton Coil, managing attorney of Rivas & Associates, told The Oklahoman she found the whole gathering odd and called the presentation “super weird.”
“It did feel like it was a sales pitch,” Coil said.
Others at the meeting, including Oklahoma County Commissioner Jason Lowe, voiced concerns about procedural policies for arrests. Lowe, who was invited by an immigration attorney, said he wanted to ensure guidelines are followed to protect civil rights. He said that while a range of attractive hiring incentives were discussed and instructions were given for how to proceed with employment applications, he would not characterize it as a “sales pitch.”
Edstrom, who has coordinated these meetings for years, said it was unlike anything before. “They were trying to recruit individuals for that office, because it was early on when they were trying to get that office open.”
In the aftermath, Brooks-Jimenez said that while no one in his office had been solicited directly, “I have heard from other people familiar with practicing assistant district attorneys that there have been a few that have decided to leave prosecuting crimes in Oklahoma, and instead go to work for ICE.”
ICE is on a hiring spree, and as of Dec. 18, 2025, the agency reported it received over 220,000 applications for more than 10,000 ICE officer positions. The agency reported it has already hired 11,751 law enforcement officers, criminal investigators and attorneys.
With nearly $80 billion in funding from President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, DHS surged hiring to specifically expand manpower within the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
ICE’s recruitment campaign includes online posts with World War II style graphics of Uncle Sam stating, “America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out.”
Incentives include up to $50,000 in signing bonuses and $60,000 in student loan repayment for new hires. The Oklahoman was told the same incentives were mentioned multiple times in the meeting with immigration attorneys at Vast.
Representatives of the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration Customs Enforcement did not respond to The Oklahoman’s requests for comment.
What is Corporate Tower in downtown Oklahoma City?
Corporate Tower is considered Class A- office space and includes a fitness center, direct access to privately owned parking and 24/7 security with video surveillance, patrols and rovers. The building is surrounded by shops, restaurants and hotels and is within walking distance of Paycom Center and Bricktown.
It’s unclear what the lawyers at Corporate Tower will be doing; the closest immigration court is located in Dallas. But several sources told The Oklahoman that at the meeting with ICE, federal officials suggested that the agency will be working virtually on overflow cases from across the country.
Wired magazine reported on Feb. 10 that it obtained documents showing that ICE was leasing office space and hiring attorneys in nearly every state, with requests for leases from OPLA, ICE’s legal arm, in 41 cities.
The publication obtained a memorandum dated Sept. 10, 2025, in which an OPLA representative asked the General Services Administration office of general counsel, the agency that manages federal real estate, to look past usual leasing procedures and bypass the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) requiring open competition bidding for lease procurements.
The opening of ICE offices at Corporate Tower has stayed quiet in comparison to the pushback against the agency over the establishment of its processing and detention centers across the country in response to their harsh tactics in Minnesota and elsewhere.
