Whistleblower: ICE Has Slashed Its Training Program And Its Boss Is Lying To Congress About It

from the not-sending-our-best,-making-them-worse dept

ICE can’t keep up with the baseline set by resident ghoul/White House advisor Stephen Miller. Miller has demanded 3,000 arrests per day, which he presented as the minimum he would be satisfied with.

To reach this goal, tons of talent from other federal law enforcement agencies have been added to the mix. The results have been less than impressive, to be entirely too kind to these kidnappers and murderers.

CBP and Border Patrol officers used to handling border crossing business are now roaming the streets of Midwestern cities looking for anyone who seems a bit too dark to be a native. In addition, nearly half of FBI agents have been placed on the “find the brown person” beat, along with volunteers/voluntolds from DEA, ATF, US Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and anyone else with a badge they’re unwilling to display prominently when raiding local day care centers.

The GOP threw a whole lot of money at ICE with the “Big Beautiful Bill.” ICE is throwing a lot of money at potential hires, much to the chagrin of law enforcement agencies everywhere, as well as already-understaffed prisons and jails.

The expectations were lowered, along with the bar for entry. The promise of a $50,000 signing bonus has managed to attract the expected blend of MAGA faithful, retired cops, bigots (but I repeat myself…), and anyone who thinks they have what it takes to frog-walk five-year-olds to the nearest rented SUV.

Hiring a bunch of people is only half the battle. The next step is preparing them to do their jobs. Ridding the nation of migrants is Job #1 here in America at the moment. But it’s a job too important to be done well by fully trained ICE officers. Quantity over quality is the name of the game, as former ICE trainer Ryan Schwank — who only resigned last week — told Congress. Here’s the Washington Post with the details:

[S]chwank… told congressional Democrats at a hearing that the agency eliminated 240 hours of “vital classes” from a mandatory 580-hour training program, including instruction about the legal boundaries for the use of force, how to safely handle firearms, and the proper way to detain and arrest immigrants.

Seems like a pretty sweet deal for new hires. Not only do they get a hefty signing bonus, but they don’t have to go through 40% of the training. Giving people guns and the power to deprive others of their lives and liberties should mean giving them the best possible training you can in hopes of heading off… well… pretty much everything we’ve been seeing lately during Trump’s anti-blue state/city surges.

Certainly, the administration is already doing everything it can to undercut the credibility of its now-former employee. But it’s not going to work unless you’re an idiot who prefers nigh-incoherent MAGA invective to actual facts. You see, Schwank didn’t just bring himself to this hearing. He also brought receipts.

Ahead of the hearing, Schwank provided a joint panel of House and Senate Democrats copies of internal ICE documents that he said show the extent of the cuts. The documents indicated that the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers in Glynco, Georgia, shortened its training program from 72 days to 42 days.

Except that’s not what Todd Lyons said to Congress when he was asked to testify following two murders committed by federal officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Lyons claimed nothing important had been cut. He also said this, which is directly contradicted by the documents Schwank gave to lawmakers:

In a statement Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said ICE recruits receive 56 days of training before beginning their assignments…

Lyons went on to say that an “average” of 28 days of additional “on the job training” occurs after that. But even if you might believe Lyons is stacking his apples against the apples in ICE’s internal documents to come up with 84 days of training, you’re miscounting apples the same way Lyons is. OJT is post-assignment. Even if you choose to believe Lyons more than the documents his own agency generated, officers are still being put on the street two weeks earlier than they used to be.

The lies persist, of course. The statement provided to the Post says something else entirely, which is also contradicted by the documents and statements made by Schwank.

“No training hours have been cut. Our officers receive extensive firearm training, are taught de-escalation tactics, and receive Fourth and Fifth Amendment comprehensive instruction,” said Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the department.

But training hours have been cut. And the rest of it is pure horseshit, especially the part about training new hires about the Fourth and Fifth Amendment. Schwank’s testimony noted that he was asked to review an internal memo signed by Lyons that claimed — untruthfully — that ICE officers can enter people’s homes using only a self-issued administrative warrant.

Other rights were similarly glossed over. In fact, some of them are ignored completely.

[Schwank] also said that a two-hour class on the rights of protesters was shortened into 10 minutes of discussion during a lecture on “the concept of seizure.”

Nice. That’s the way to do it. Goodbye, First Amendment. Instead, here’s 10 minutes of ICE’s interpretative dance: “The Fourth Amendment, And What It Doesn’t Mean To Us.”

Everyone knew that once the cattle call began, ICE would be swarmed with opportunists who saw a great way to combine their bigotry and violence tendencies with a career — however short-lived — in public service. A steady paycheck, and all the government asked was that you show up at least 40% of the time during training.

This horde (actual number unknown) is being pushed through the doors towards their on-the-job-training, armed with little more than their masks, their guns, and some very comprehensive incorrecting of their constitutional notions.

Of course, none of this will matter to the people running ICE. I’m pretty sure they love this press. They have no interest in heading up a finely-tuned precise instrument of immigration law enforcement. They’d rather have the untargeted terrorizing of entire neighborhoods and the unearned swagger of a paramilitary death squad that somehow can still be hooted, horn-honked, and whistled into submission by suburbanites. And maybe this isn’t even an intentional design decision. There’s a good chance no one up top is intelligent enough to recognize the self-destructiveness of their actions. For now, at least, we know what they know. And we know this is wrong.

Filed Under: dhs, ice, mass deportation, ryan schwank, todd lyons, trump administration