Former ICE lawyer testifies training for immigration agent recruits 'deficient, defective, broken'

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A whistleblower is warning that training for new ICE recruits is unsound.

In testimony under oath, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer responsible for training new deportation officers called the agency's training program, "deficient, defective and broken."

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Ryan Schwank voiced his concerns this week during a forum held by congressional Democrats.

"The legally required training program at the ICE academy is deficient, defective and broken," he said. "On my first day I received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the constitution."

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.

In a scathing response, DHS claims it provides the "best of the best" training for new ICE officers. New recruits receive 56 days of training and an average of 28 days of on-the-job training.

Bill Kushner, ABC7 Police Affairs Consultant, disagrees.

"56 days of training, that's almost, that's almost criminal, almost criminal," said Kushner, who spent years training new officers at the Chicago Police Academy.

Kushner says that simply isn't enough time to prepare agents to safely interact with the public in a highly volatile environment.

"They shortened firearms training, which is almost criminal," Kushner said. "They shortened or eliminated use of force training, which, again, is just unconscionable in any day and age. And they shortened worse or eliminated other parts of their training for dealing with the public."

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Kushner told the I-Team Chicago police get 14 weeks of academy training, then 12 weeks of field training with a field training officer along with 40-50 hours of firearms training and at least 18 hours of training in use of force.

"When you can, when you cannot, shoot, as well as judgmental training as far as when you should and should not shoot, because just because you can doesn't mean it's necessarily safe for you to do so," he explained.

Carla Espinoza, a former immigration judge-turned immigration attorney after she was fired by the Trump administration, says she has seen the result of that poor training firsthand.

"Of the dozens of cases that I've litigated, a large majority of them, in my opinion, related to individuals who were unlawfully arrested," Espinoza said.

The training ICE agents receive before being deployed nationwide is under intense scrutiny as the Trump administration pushes to hire thousands of new immigration officers this year and has ramped up enforcement throughout the country, sometimes with lethal outcomes.

Espinoza added, "When you cut the training and then put them in certainly more volatile enforcement operations and situations that we had never seen before, you're going to have fatal consequences, such as the ones we've seen."

In its response to allegations of deficient training, DHS said it has streamlined training to cut redundancy without sacrificing basic subject matter content.