WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed new recruits in its training program before they completed the agency’s screening process, an unusual sequence of events as the agency races to hire federal immigration agents to implement President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy, a current and two former officials told NBC News of the Department of Homeland Security.
ICE officials only later discovered that some of those recruits had failed drug tests, had disqualifying criminal histories or did not meet the physical or academic requirements to serve, the sources said.
Staff at the ICE training academy in Brunswick, Ga., recently discovered that a recruit had previously been charged with armed robbery and battery stemming from a domestic violence incident, the current DHS official said. They also discovered as recently as this month that some recruits taking the six-week training course had not submitted their fingerprints for background checks, as required by ICE’s hiring process, current and former DHS officials said.
Per ICE policy, applicants must pass a drug test and submit to a security screening by the ICE Human Resources Office prior to attending the training course. Former officials said that process was more strictly adhered to before the hiring spree that began this summer. This process was intended to eliminate disqualified candidates before they were sent for training.
Since this surge began, the agency has fired more than 200 new hires while they were in training for failing to meet its hiring requirements, according to internal data recently collected by ICE and reviewed by NBC News.
The majority of them did not meet ICE’s physical or academic standards, according to the data. Just under 10 recruits were fired for criminal charges, for failing drug tests or for security concerns that should have been flagged during a background check before arriving for training, the data showed and current and former DHS officials confirmed.
Officials said there is growing concern that in the Trump administration’s race to increase the number of ICE agents to 10,000 by the end of the year, the agency may miss the red flags in the background of some new recruits and inadvertently hire them.
“It is absolutely concerning that some people are falling through the cracks,” the current DHS official said. The official said many of the problems reported during training only surfaced because recruits admitted they did not submit to fingerprinting or drug testing before arriving.
“And those who don’t admit it?” said the manager.
In a statement to NBC News, the Department of Homeland Security said most of its new hires are former law enforcement officers and former ICE agents who go through a different process.
“The numbers you reference are not accurate and reflect a subset of applicants in the initial basic academy classes,” said DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin. “The vast majority of new officers hired in the hiring surge are experienced law enforcement officers who have already successfully completed a law enforcement academy. This population is expected to represent more than 85% of new hires. Previous hires follow a streamlined vetting but remain subject to medical, physical fitness and background requirements.”
The Atlantic reported this week on the difficulties some ICE recruits face in meeting the agency’s physical fitness requirements. The broader scope of the problems and specific data have not been previously reported.
ICE has been under pressure from the White House to increase recruiting with funding provided by Congress in the sweeping tax and spending bill that Trump signed into law on July 4. The agency has often fallen behind the White House’s goal of arresting 3,000 people per day, which it has attributed to a lack of manpower.
As part of this effort, ICE shortened training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Georgia from 13 weeks to eight weeks. The training was later shortened to six weeks, the DHS official said.
Recruits are also expected to attest that they can pass the ICE fitness test, which includes sit-ups, pull-ups and running a mile in less than 14 minutes and 25 seconds.
Darius Reeves, who recently left his job as director of ICE’s Baltimore field office, said he believes the agency’s Aug. 6 decision to remove age limits so older people can join has led to more recruits failing the physical test.
“These new hires are dropping like flies,” Reeves said in an interview after speaking with colleagues looking to bring new hires into the agency. “And rightly so, it makes sense. We’re going to drop the age requirement, of course it was going to happen.”
Nearly half of new recruits who arrived for FLETC training in the past three months were then sent home because they failed to pass the written exam, data shows. Academic requirements include an exam in which officers are allowed to look at their textbooks and notes at the end of a law course on immigration and nationality law and the Fourth Amendment, which outlines when officers can and cannot conduct searches and seizures.
A slightly smaller group was fired because they failed the physical fitness test or had medical problems, although some of those sent home made it clear in their applications that they could not meet ICE’s physical requirements but were sent to training anyway, current and former DHS officials said.
Fewer than 10 of the new recruits were fired because ICE training officials learned from the recruits during the training program that they were facing criminal charges, had failed their drug test or were considered a security concern, officials said.
All three sources said the agency’s human resources office is overwhelmed with more than 150,000 new applicants who have applied since ICE began offering $50,000 signing bonuses in August. The human resources department rushes to approve new hires, which they say leads to mistakes.
“They’re trying to pass everyone through, and the selection process is not what it should be,” said one of the former DHS officials familiar with the agency’s recruitment.
The current DHS official likened the pressure on ICE human resources employees to allow recruits to “asking them to pull a rabbit out of a hat.”
