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The U.S. Secret Service is undertaking one of the largest hiring expansions in its history, planning to add roughly 4,000 agents and officers by 2028 as it prepares for the next presidential election and the Los Angeles Olympics, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
The initiative would increase the agency’s total staffing by about 20 percent, pushing its workforce past 10,000 for the first time. Officials say the buildup is designed to address years of attrition, growing threats and the increasing complexity of the agency’s protective mission.
Deputy Director Matthew Quinn is leading the effort, supported by Secret Service Director Sean Curran, who previously headed former President Donald Trump’s protective detail. Recruiting has become “second only to protection,” according to the report.
“The protective mission has expanded,” Quinn told the Post. “Our numbers are low to meet those needs. We have to achieve what we said we were going to do 10 years ago. We’ve got to achieve it now.”
The agency hopes to grow its roster of special agents from about 3,500 to 5,000, while increasing the Uniformed Division to roughly 2,000 officers. Additional administrative and technical staff will also be hired to support protective operations.
The expansion comes amid heightened threats to national leaders, near-constant travel demands and upcoming global events that will require extensive coordination with other law enforcement agencies.
The Secret Service has been under scrutiny since last year’s security breach at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the former president survived an assassination attempt. Poor interagency coordination contributed to the failure, The Post reported, raising concerns about readiness for future large-scale events.
To accelerate hiring without sacrificing standards, the agency recently introduced an Accelerated Candidate Event program that condenses the traditional hiring process into four days. The program includes the entrance exam, physical test, interviews, medical evaluations, and polygraph screening.
More than 775 applicants attended the first event in November, with about 360 advancing to the next stage, according to a Secret Service statement. The program also hopes to address the fact that roughly one-third of the current workforce is expected to be eligible for retirement by 2028, compounding the agency’s recruitment challenge.
