With new information from a whistleblower, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Monday that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency needs far more training as they must follow the law concerning illegal searches and seizures.
Despite the major snowstorm across the Northeast, Blumenthal moved ahead with a public hearing with a new ICE whistleblower who cited flaws in the agency’s actions.
Ryan Schwank, a former attorney with ICE who resigned from the agency on Feb. 13, stepped forward as a whistleblower to talk about his days as a legal instructor for new ICE recruits at a training center in Georgia. His tasks included explaining the details of the Fourth Amendment and other legalities regarding searches and seizures in American homes.
“I am duty bound to tell you the ICE basic immigration enforcement training program is now deficient, defective, and broken,” Schwank said in written testimony in his first public remarks on the issue. “Without reform, ICE will graduate thousands of new officers who do not know their constitutional duty, do not know the limits of their authority, and do not have the training to recognize an unlawful order.”
He added, “Law enforcement is a deadly serious business. It is not a place for hyperbole, exaggeration, or falsehoods. Deficient training can and will get people killed. It can and will lead to unlawful arrests, violations of constitutional rights, and a fundamental loss of public trust in law enforcement. ICE is lying to Congress and the American people about the steps it is taking to ensure its 10,000 new officers faithfully uphold the Constitution and can perform their jobs.”
Schwank, who said he resigned from ICE in order to allow him to testify to Congress, said it is false that the new officers are receiving sufficient training. “This is a lie,” he told Blumenthal and others. “ICE made the program shorter. … This pattern of lies is not isolated. … ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution.”
A two-hour class on how to treat protesters was sharply cut back to about 10 minutes, he said.
Documents released Monday show that ICE training has been sharply reduced as the agency has “eliminated over a dozen practical exams that ICE ERO officers previously needed to pass to graduate and become an ICE officer,” according to a memo by Blumenthal’s subcommittee staff.
In addition, “ICE appears to have entirely cut a significant number of important classes from its ERO officer training,” the memo said.
Blumenthal, who organized the hearing with U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, said it is important to hear from insiders who have seen the actions of ICE as Monday marked the third hearing on the issue. Blumenthal serves as the ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
“We know about the Trump Administration’s decimation of training for immigration officers and its secret policy to shred your Constitutional rights because of the brave Americans who are speaking out today,” Blumenthal said before the hearing. “They are coming to Congress because we have the responsibility to not only bear witness to these crimes, but to do something to make sure they don’t happen again. To anyone else who is repulsed by what you’re seeing or what authorities are asking you to do, please know that you can make a real difference by coming forward. You’ll meet a moral imperative. Our door is open, we are here for you when you are ready, and we will do everything within our power to protect your rights.”
In earlier testimony in front of Congress, Todd Lyons, the acting ICE director, defended the agency.
“We reduced the timeline for the previous certified federal law enforcement officers or special agents,” he said. “Where we went to ones who are already trained in firearms and defensive tactics and criminal procedure, we adapted to a shorter program, so they would just have the extensive Immigration Nationality Act training, immigration law and ICE-specific training.”
Stevan E. Bunnell, a former federal prosecutor for 17 years, testified that the law is clear on the guardrails for ICE.
“It is a basic principle of Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable,” said Bunnell, who served as the Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel from 2013 to 2017. “Indeed, the Supreme Court has stated that the physical entry of the home is ‘the chief evil against which the working of the Fourth Amendment is directed.’ The law is also clear that a warrant to enter someone’s home has to be issued by a ‘neutral and detached magistrate or judge.’ In other words, the police can’t sign their own warrants.”
Lawmakers also heard live testimony from health care worker Teyana Gibson Brown, a United States citizen whose home in Minneapolis was forcefully entered in January by ICE agents who did not have a judicial warrant. Brown says the agents broke her door down and pointed their guns at her family members.
Brown videotaped the encounter in which the agents used a battering ram to pop the door open. Later, a federal judge ruled that the ICE agents had violated the Fourth Amendment on unreasonable searches and seizures. The agents arrested Brown’s husband, a Liberian immigrant, without a judicial warrant. He had asked to see the warrant, which Brown said was not shown. He was later ordered by the judge to be released.
“The fear in my daughter’s eyes is something you can’t imagine,” Brown told lawmakers.
During the hearing, Blumenthal described the arrest, which was captured on videotape, as “one of the most grievous violations of the Constitution I have seen in America.”
Garcia said, “This is wrong. It’s outrageous. … I want to say I’m sorry for what you have had to experience.”
In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont issued a rebuke to ICE during his State of the State Address, also charging that agents are not properly trained.
“We have perhaps the best trained police force in the world, making Connecticut one of the very safest states. ICE is just the opposite. They see the world as us versus them. They are not trained to deescalate – they are barely trained at all. They hide behind a mask, they come to Connecticut – and Minneapolis – to arrest people outside of schools or courthouses, often based upon the color of their skin,” Lamont said, mentioning Hispanic kids afraid to go to school and Renee Good, who was shot and killed by ICE agents in Minnesota.
“Connecticut is protecting our schools and courthouses, where people go not to break the law but because they are following the law. ICE, everywhere you go uninvited, violence follows. Go home. We are keeping Connecticut safe without you,” Lamont said.
But some Connecticut Republicans have voiced support for ICE.
In response to Lamont’s speech, state Rep. Cara Pavalock-D’Amato of Bristol stood up and turned her back to Lamont to show that her jacket was emblazoned with the words “ICE IN.” She told The Courant that she had first-hand experience with the immigration system as a sponsor because she completed the application for her first husband who immigrated from Venezuela.
When asked by The Courant about her personal protest, she responded, “I don’t have any regrets whatsoever. Look, I respect the chamber. I also respect the Speaker. … I’m supporting ICE. I’m supporting those officers who support us, who protect us, protect our children. For the governor to come after ICE like he did, I’m sorry. I don’t have any regrets. I just don’t.”
Christopher Keating can be reached at [email protected]