More than a third [of ICE recruits] have failed so far, four officials told me, impeding the agency’s plan to hire, train, and deploy 10,000 deportation officers by January. To pass, recruits must do 15 push-ups and 32 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes.Even if you are fairly fit and active, no particular activity is easy unless you actually do exercises related to that activity. The important implication here is that they are trying to onboard so many people that none of them are told to go away and train for a few weeks.
The article says the run is what is taking most of them down. Lots of guys lift but don't do cardio. Cardio is for pussies.
I couldn't do the pushups. I run, so that would be trivial for me, but it isn't trivial for people who don't run at all. Though, as I said, it's not difficult to train for in a short amount of time for someone who is generally fit.
There's a big difference between what people can do cold and what they can do after a few weeks of effort. A regular cyclist might struggle to do the run cold, but they would probably find it easy after a few runs.