- Aug 18, 2012
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“ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution,” ......
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who resigned this month from his job instructing new recruits came forward on Monday as a whistle-blower, describing what he said was a “deficient, defective and broken” training program with a pared-back curriculum as the Trump administration races to expand the agency.
The account by Ryan Schwank, a former ICE lawyer who worked at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy, coincided with the release by Senate Democrats of several dozen pages of internal ICE records that suggest the Trump administration has curtailed the agency’s basic training.
“For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program,” Mr. Schwank said at a forum held in Washington by congressional Democrats. “Cutting 240 hours of vital classes from a 584-hour program — classes that teach the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention and the limits of officers’ authority.”
He added: “New cadets are graduating from the academy despite widespread concerns among training staff that even in the final days of training, the cadets cannot demonstrate a solid grasp of the tactics or the law required to perform their jobs.”
...
Mr. Schwank was hired as an ICE lawyer in 2021 and became an instructor last year at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy in Georgia, where he taught courses on the law. He resigned on Feb. 13 after he and another publicly unidentified person submitted a confidential whistle-blower complaint on a separate matter that has raised constitutional questions: a new ICE policy allowing deportation officers to enter homes and arrest people without a judicial warrant.
“ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution,” he said on Monday at the event with congressional Democrats.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who resigned this month from his job instructing new recruits came forward on Monday as a whistle-blower, describing what he said was a “deficient, defective and broken” training program with a pared-back curriculum as the Trump administration races to expand the agency.
The account by Ryan Schwank, a former ICE lawyer who worked at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy, coincided with the release by Senate Democrats of several dozen pages of internal ICE records that suggest the Trump administration has curtailed the agency’s basic training.
“For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program,” Mr. Schwank said at a forum held in Washington by congressional Democrats. “Cutting 240 hours of vital classes from a 584-hour program — classes that teach the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention and the limits of officers’ authority.”
He added: “New cadets are graduating from the academy despite widespread concerns among training staff that even in the final days of training, the cadets cannot demonstrate a solid grasp of the tactics or the law required to perform their jobs.”
...
Mr. Schwank was hired as an ICE lawyer in 2021 and became an instructor last year at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy in Georgia, where he taught courses on the law. He resigned on Feb. 13 after he and another publicly unidentified person submitted a confidential whistle-blower complaint on a separate matter that has raised constitutional questions: a new ICE policy allowing deportation officers to enter homes and arrest people without a judicial warrant.
“ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution,” he said on Monday at the event with congressional Democrats.
