The Department of Homeland Security sped up training for police officers making immigration arrests by scaling back instruction on the nation’s immigration laws and real world scenarios they might encounter, according to emails reviewed by The Washington Post.
The Trump administration reduced training for officers whose departments agreed to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from four weeks of in-person education to 40 hours of virtual training last year as part of a broader effort to expand the agency’s footprint across the nation.
While The Post and others have reported on the shortened training, relatively little has been known about what components had been trimmed.
Watchdog group American Oversight obtained a trove of documents through a Freedom of Information Act request that included an email sent last February from an ICE official to David Venturella and Todd Lyons. The official’s name was redacted. Lyons was ICE’s acting director at the time and resignedin May; Venturella was an adviser and now leads the agency.
In the correspondence, the official described how teachings on immigrant classifications and removal charges would be “truncated” to meet the requests of unnamed individuals who requested that the course be shortened. Instruction providing officers with real world scenarios they might encounter while out in the field was eliminated altogether.
“The records we uncovered are so concerning because we are getting a front-row seat to how the process to educate and train the officers that are now performing such incredibly sensitive work is being completely gutted,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight.
The partnerships between local police and ICE, known as 287(g) agreements, have expanded exponentially since last January. Under the Biden administration, ICE had 135 active agreements across 16 states. Now, there are more than 2,600 agencies signed up. Most of the accords provide departments compensation in exchange for training officers to help arrest people for civil immigration violations during routine activities like traffic stops.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the changes to the training program, but it has previously praised local agencies for their work collaborating with ICE on arrests.
“We have had tremendous success when local law enforcement work with us,” the agency said in a written statement to The Post in August.
In the email sent last year, the ICE official notes that the agency was initially instructed to cut the four-week training program to two weeks, but was then asked to trim it further to one week.
“Some of the materials that were removed, the subject matter was seemingly designed to help the officers understand whether or not they have a lawful bases to act against someone in the first place,” Chukwu said. “So for example, who is actually a citizen, what is their immigration status, what grounds could possibly justify seeking their removal?”
The ICE official listed 10 topics that remain in the abbreviated 40-hour program, including use of force policy, liability and civil rights law, immigrant detention and “cross-cultural issues,” among others. The official says the recruits would have one test per training day.
Five hours after the email was sent, Venturella responded with a one-word reply: “Thanks.”
Police officers are not the only ones whose training on enforcing immigration laws was significantly shortened after President Donald Trump returned to office. Training for new ICE officers was also reduced. Their 72-day instruction program at the Federal Law enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, was trimmed to a 42-day course.
The Trump administration reverted to the longer training program earlier this year after Democrats and former federal law enforcement officials questioned whether the recruits were being rushed on to the job without adequate preparation.
ICE received tens of billions of dollars in additional funds under Trump and has hired thousands of new officers. The agency has been making record numbers of arrests, and a Post analysis of government data showed most of those ICE is detaining do not have a criminal record.
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