The Department of Defense is putting more pressure on employees to volunteer to support the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration crackdown.

In a February 19 memo sent to civilians across the DOD, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth wrote that he expects “every supervisor to encourage their civilian employees to volunteer. Leadership must continue to promote this detail program and educate their civilian employees on its importance.” The memo, which was titled “Department of War Guidance to Encourage Support to the Department of Homeland Security Southern Border and Internal Immigration Enforcement Missions,” was sent to thousands of civilian DOD employees. The memo was first reported by GovExec and was also viewed by WIRED.

The instructions follow a June 2025 memo in which Hegseth authorized civilian employees to be detailed to DHS. But an Army civilian employee who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation says that there is “definitely more pressure” now, “at least on the supervisory chain.”

The DOD and DHS did not respond to a request for comment.

“I received the obligatory announcement email with the first memo when it came out, and no one has talked about it at all, so much so that I had forgotten about it entirely,” says the Army civilian employee. “I don’t know anyone who has taken the job.” In a statement from August 2025, the DOD claims that “nearly 500 DoD civilians have signed up to participate and bring their skill sets to the border security and immigration enforcement mission at the participating DHS agencies.”

“While details and other short-term professional development opportunities are common for Army civilians, I have never heard of supervisors being REQUIRED to approve such details,” they say.

The employee noted that, as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to cut back on government jobs in the name of “efficiency,” Hegseth has sought to cut the department’s workforce. “I have taken up the duties of three departed colleagues on top of the job I was hired for as a result,” they say. This means it would be difficult for the department to lose anymore staff or for workers to step away from existing projects. The employee described this kind of request to volunteer for another federal agency as “very not common.” It’s not like the Defense Department has any spare time at the moment, either: Hegseth and DOD leadership are currently engaged in directing the US’s role in conflict with Iran.

DOD employees who want to volunteer to be detailed to DHS need to apply through USAJobs. According to the job posting, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is part of DHS, will be reviewing applications. Volunteers will not only be sent to the southern border, but to “several ICE and CBP facilities throughout the interior of the United States.”

While some volunteer roles appear to be mundane tasks like “data entry,” others appear to be in the thick of immigration enforcement operations. These include assisting ICE and CBP in “developing concepts of operation and campaign plans to execute internal arrests and raids as well as patrols along the Southwest Border”; assisting ICE and CBP in “managing the physical flow of detained illegal aliens from arrest to deportation, as well as manage associated data”; and “managing the logistical planning to move law enforcement personnel, operational capabilities, and support equipment across the United States.”

The memo is just the latest in a series of changes across the federal government meant to enforce president Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a new rule would bar families with immigrant members from receiving certain forms of support from the agency, and at the General Services Administration, staff have been asked to assist ICE in procuring new physical spaces across the country.

Google rolled out multiple new AI features today for its core Workspace products: Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive. These apps now include additional tools powered by Gemini, Google’s AI assistant. The features range from generating entire rough drafts in your Docs to finding information tucked away in the recesses of your Drive.

This Google launch is part of a larger trend in 2026, in which major software developers are continuing to bake generative-AI-based features into core user experiences—despite the lingering distaste many in the US have for tools like these. The features are coming first to English-speaking subscribers of Google’s AI Pro and Ultra plans.

For Docs, Google added “Help me create,” which attempts to generate full first drafts of your document, from a prompt, by looking at your emails and files, and searching the internet for context. This feature takes the existing “Help me write” feature in the Chrome browser even further and points to a future where humans rely on AI to craft their thoughts and share ideas with others.

Sheets and Slides both can now create similar full first drafts by pulling from information on the web and your past data. Another new, notable feature in Docs enables users to mimic the structure of past files when starting a new project. Also, Drive now includes AI Overviews of your files and more natural language searching abilities.

My tests primarily focused on the new tools in Google Docs, where I have the most familiarity. To start, I asked Gemini to draft an itinerary for some St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans. In just a few seconds, Gemini combed through my Gmail and the web to put together a short plan. I was a little creeped out when the bot correctly looked up my flight reservations to see what city I’d be located in on March 17. It also tacked on a few well-known Irish pubs where I could grab a pint of Guinness. Overall, the results of this test were quick and solid.

Now let’s raise the stakes. How convincing a first draft could Gemini generate for my job as a software reporter? WIRED’s editorial standards block the use of generative AI, rightly so, except in situations where it’s disclosed and used as an example. Rest assured, everything you’re reading here was scribbled into my notebook before being typed up.

Other digital media outlets may not have rigorous standards around AI use, and tools like “Help me create” could be forced onto early-career journalists expected to pump out numerous stories each day. I attached the press materials Google provided about today’s launch and requested a 600-word hands-on story from Gemini, with first-person insights that could help readers better understand the launch.

Enterprise and industrial connectivity is becoming critical infrastructure through artificial intelligence (AI) moving into real-world operations, and in response to this changing world, Ericsson and Future Technologies Venture have expanded their existing collaboration to accelerate deployment of enterprise wireless and private 5G networks across industrial and critical infrastructure sectors in North America.

The comms tech giant and connectivity transformation systems integrator believe that as organisations deploy AI into real-world environments – from manufacturing plants and logistics networks to energy infrastructure and transportation systems – they require secure, resilient and deterministic connectivity capable of supporting real-time data movement between connected devices, edge computing platforms and centralised cloud systems.

Moreover, they believe that as industries accelerate adoption of AI-driven operational technologies, scalable wireless infrastructure is emerging as a strategic foundation for modern industrial environments.

They add that such a shift is creating a growing gap between AI compute capacity and the enterprise networks designed to support it, and warn that many traditional enterprise connectivity architectures were not built to deliver the scale, reliability and real-time performance required for modern AI-enabled operations.

To address these requirements, Ericsson and Future Technologies Venture stressed that organisations are increasingly deploying cellular technologies, including private 5G and enterprise wireless WAN (WWAN), to provide secure, deterministic connectivity across complex operational environments.

The new collaboration is based on the conviction that enterprise wireless is becoming a foundational layer enabling AI-driven modernisation across physical industries. The partnership will see Ericsson provide enterprise wireless and private cellular technologies while Future Technologies will deliver systems integration expertise spanning strategy, architecture, deployment and lifecycle services.

In addition, Future Technologies will look to offer overall enterprise wireless transformation initiatives, helping organisations to design and deploy modern connectivity environments across sectors including energy, manufacturing, transportation, logistics and enterprise campus environments.

The organisation also operates customer validation environments including its Living Lab and Lab-on-Wheels mobile demonstration platform to allow enterprises to test real-world connectivity architectures, validate operational use cases and accelerate pilot-to-production deployment timelines.

Ericsson and Future Technologies have already collaborated for more than 13 years across thousands of deployments throughout North America with what is said to be more than $150m in cumulative joint engagement value, spanning public cellular modernisation, private cellular deployments, industrial wireless WAN initiatives and large-scale enterprise connectivity transformation programmes.

Deployments have taken place at manufacturing environments, industrial facilities, and large-scale sports and entertainment venues where secure connectivity enables real-time operational data and advanced digital applications.

Åsa Tamsons, senior vice-president and head of business area enterprise wireless solutions at Ericsson, said: “AI is moving into the physical world, and that fundamentally changes the role connectivity plays inside enterprises. Enterprise wireless is becoming foundational infrastructure for AI-driven operations. Our collaboration with Future Technologies strengthens Ericsson’s ability to help organisations deploy the networks required to power the next generation of industrial innovation.”

Future Technologies CEO Peter Cappiello added: “Connectivity transformation is not simply about upgrading networks, it is about enabling AI modernisation across industrial environments. Ericsson has been a foundational technology partner for more than 13 years. Together we are scaling deterministic enterprise wireless as a utility layer supporting modern infrastructure across North America.”