'ICE Is Teaching Cadets to Violate the Constitution,' Whistleblower Says During Congressional Hearing

A former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) instructor told congressional Democrats on Monday that the agency has sharply reduced training requirements for new officers and directed instructors to teach policies he believes are unconstitutional.

Ryan Schwank, who resigned on February 13 from his post at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, said ICE eliminated roughly 240 hours from what had been a 580-hour basic training program. According to documents he provided to lawmakers, the academy shortened its program from 72 days to 42.

"Law enforcement is a deadly serious business. It is not a place for shortcuts," Schwank said in the hearing. "Deficient training can and will get people killed." He added: "ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution and attempting to cloak it in secrecy by demanding I lie about it."

Schwank testified that firearms instruction was reduced by 16 hours and that practical exams were cut from 25 to nine. Eliminated exams included "Judgment pistol shooting" and "Determine removability," according to a 90-page memorandum released by minority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and analyzed by The Los Angeles Times.

Schwank said courses on use-of-force simulation and legal standards were removed or shortened, and that some closed-book tests became open-book.

He also described being shown an internal memo authorizing ICE officers to enter homes using administrative warrants signed by agency officials rather than judicial warrants. Schwank said he was instructed to teach the policy but not to discuss or document it. "Never in my career had I ever received such a blatant unlawful order," he said.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, denied cutting training hours through recently-appointed spokeswoman Lauren Bis, who said recruits receive 56 days of training plus an average of 28 days of on-the-job instruction. "No training hours have been cut," she said through a statement to The Washington Post, adding that officers receive "Fourth and Fifth Amendment comprehensive instruction."

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons previously testified that the agency compressed training into longer days but did not remove "the meat of the training."

The dispute comes as ICE announced in January it has hired more than 12,000 officers in less than a year, doubling its ranks.

John Sandweg, a former acting ICE director, warned in interviews as far back as November that accelerated hiring combined with limited vetting could produce "potentially catastrophic results," particularly if recruits lack proper training or are motivated by anti-immigrant sentiment.