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WASHINGTON (AP) — A former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer who was responsible for training new deportation officers warned Monday that the agency’s training program for new recruits is “deficient, defective and broken.”
Ryan Schwank’s comments during a forum held by congressional Democrats come at a time of intense scrutiny of the officers tasked with carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Critics, including rights groups and Democratic politicians, have accused deportation officers of using excessive force when arresting immigrants, attacking bystanders who record their conduct and failing to follow constitutional protections of people’s rights.
The Department of Homeland Security is rapidly scaling up the number of deportation officers, raising concerns that it will sacrifice proper screening and training of applicants in a rush to get them into the field. The department denied it was cutting corners, saying new officers get trained on firearms, use-of-force policies and how to safely arrest people.
Schwank testified during a hearing hosted by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Robert Garcia of California. Blumenthal’s office said Schwank resigned from the agency on Feb. 13.
“I am here because I am duty-bound to report the legally required training program at the ICE academy is deficient, defective and broken,” Schwank said.
He also accused the department of dismantling the training program for new deportation officers and lying about what they were doing.
“DHS told the public the new cadets receive all the training they need to perform their duties, that no critical material or standards have been cut,” he said. “This is a lie. ICE made the program shorter, and they removed so many essential parts that what remains is a dangerous husk.”
Monday’s was the third public forum held by the two Democrats to examine how ICE is training thousands of new officers and the conduct of those officers once they’re on the streets. Both have been vocal critics of how ICE officers conduct themselves. At the beginning of the hearing, Blumenthal thanked the witnesses, including Schwank, for their “courage and strength.”
Blumenthal’s office said Schwank was one of two anonymous whistleblowers who came forward earlier to disclose a new ICE policy authorizing deportation officers to forcibly enter an immigrant’s home to remove them from the country even if they didn’t have a warrant signed by a judge.
His office also released dozens of pages of documents related to the training of new deportation officers, noting the disclosure came from whistleblowers.
Blumenthal’s office said the documents demonstrated “drastic cuts” to how new deportation officers are trained and tested. That includes changes to the number of exams new officers have to pass, the classes they have to take and the hours they train.
“The training has been truncated and reduced, both in numbers of courses and substantive policy,” the senator said at the start of the hearing.
Homeland Security strongly denied that it has removed any training requirements or lessened requirements for officers. ICE recruits receive 56 days of training and 28 days on average of on-the-job training, the department said Monday in response to an inquiry about the allegations made during the forum.
“Despite false claims from the media and sanctuary politicians, 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,” department spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in an e-mailed statement.
She also said ICE recruits are monitored on the job after graduating from the academy.
The department has “streamlined training to cut redundancy and incorporate technology advancements, without sacrificing basic subject matter content,” Bis said.
Schwank disputed that new officers are getting much in the way of on-the-job training, describing the supervision as minimal. Many graduates go to their home offices just long enough to “get their gun, their badge and their body armor,” he said.
Schwank said he had taught cadets who were as young as 18, including one who celebrated her 19th birthday in his classroom. Previously, new recruits had to be at least 21, but Homeland Security announced last summer that it was removing age restrictions on who could join the agency. Schwank said the recruits wanted to do well but the agency wasn’t giving them the training to do the job correctly.
At one point during Monday’s forum, Schwank was asked whether he had ever seen recruits use disproportional force during training and replied that he had seen that happen multiple times. He cited examples of trainees accidentally drawing their firearms on each other, arresting people without cause or using excessive force. Even so, he said, they graduated from the academy.
The documents released by Blumenthal’s office show that ICE is eliminating over a dozen “practical exams” that used to be necessary for deportation officers to pass, according to an analysis by Democratic Senate staff. ICE also appears to have cut a number of classes from the training, including “Use of Force Simulation Training.”
Deportation officers appear to be getting fewer hours of training overall, according to the documents.
The two other people who spoke during the forum were Teyana Gibson Brown, whose husband was arrested by deportation officers who broke into their house without a warrant signed by a judge to take him away, and Stevan Bunnell, who was the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2017.
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