ICE whistleblower testifies about ‘secretive orders,’ curtailed officer training program

Ryan Schwank, a whistleblower who recently resigned from ICE, told congressional Democratic oversight leaders Monday that he was given “secretive orders” to teach new officers to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant. 

He also testified about the Department of Homeland Security cutting training for immigration enforcement officers in half, leaving a “dangerous husk.”

Mr. Schwank joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August 2021 as an assistant chief counsel, and resigned on Feb. 13 of this year so he could testify publicly about the agency dismantling its training program and sending unprepared officers into the field. 

“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 who do not have the training to recognize an unlawful order,” he said. “That should scare everyone.”

Mr. Schwank’s testimony came during a forum hosted by Democratic oversight leaders, Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and California Rep. Robert Garcia of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Democrats are pushing for new guardrails on ICE and blocking DHS funding until they get their way. 

Mr. Schwank’s testimony could bolster the case for some of their demands surrounding training and standards for using force. 

“This hearing will be an impetus, among others that we are having, toward reforming ICE in a root and branch way – not just cosmetically, but fundamentally – so that the kind of misconduct that we are seeing in America’s communities and streets will be stopped,” Mr. Blumenthal said.  

Prior to his resignation, Mr. Schwank spent several months teaching the law to new cadets at the ICE Academy in Glynco, Georgia.

He said he watched as ICE cut in half its 584-hour training program — which included classes on handling firearms, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention and the limits of officers’ authority — down to 240 hours.

DHS officials are lying when they say no critical material or standards have been cut from the training program, Mr. Schwank said. 

“They ceased all of the legal instructions regarding use of force,” Mr. Schwank said. “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.”

Training staff share “widespread concerns” that cadets cannot demonstrate a solid grasp of the tactics or the law required to perform their jobs, Mr. Schwank said. 

Mr. Blumenthal said it contradicts testimony that acting ICE Director Todd Lyons gave to Congress earlier this month, in which “he promised that no cuts have been made to the content of officer training.”

Mr. Schwank also testified that on his first day teaching at the ICE academy, his supervisor gave him a memo “to read and return” that claimed ICE officers could enter homes without a judicial warrant.

“Never in my career had I ever received such a blatantly unlawful order, nor one conveyed in such a troubling manner,” he said, saying the instruction not only violated the Fourth Amendment but DHS’s own legal training materials.

“ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution, and they were attempting to cloak it in secrecy by demanding that I lie about it,” Mr. Schwank said.

That secret memo has been put into practice.

Teyana Gibson Brown testified about how ICE officers showed up at her home on Jan. 11 claiming to have a warrant signed by a judge but refusing to show it to her or her husband.

She said neighbors and other protesters gathered and demanded the officers leave. Instead, ten officers who “looked like SWAT agents holding each other’s shoulders like a barricade” approached her front door.  

“One of them grabbed a protester that was in the front of my yard from the front of his neck and the back of his head, and slung him in the icy ground,” Ms. Gibson Brown said. “The officers walked up to my door and started ramming the door. They hit the door three times until the door popped open.”

She said her family stood in “horror” as the ten officers pointed their guns at them. Ms. Gibson Brown asked again to see the warrant, but the officers did not comply.