A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) whistleblower accused the agency of lying about shortchanging its training, including legal training over whether they are permitted to use deadly force, amid a hiring surge of new officers.

Ryan Schwank, a former lawyer for ICE, said training for new officers has been pared down to the point where it is “deficient, defective and broken” during a forum organized by congressional Democrats about “constitutional violations and abuses” within ICE policies. He accused ICE leaders of shielding training shortcuts from the public.

Schwank countered administration claims that it has maintained training standards even as it has condensed some aspects of its program.

“For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program, 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,” said Schwank, who recently trained cadets at the ICE academy in Georgia.

“They ceased all of the legal instructions regarding use of force. This means that cadets are not taught what it means to be objectively reasonable, the very standard which the law requires them to meet when deciding whether or not to use deadly force. Our jobs as instructors are to teach them so well that they can make split second decisions about what they can and cannot do in life or death situations,”...

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