Last Monday, the Trump administration deployed roughly 2,000 agents from ICE to the Twin Cities area amid a growing fraud scandal at day care centers run by Somali residents. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on social media that the agents are there to conduct “ a massive investigation on childcare and other rampant fraud.”
The current ICE agent pointed out that while the pretense of the immigration operation in Minneapolis is to investigate welfare fraud, neither border patrol officers nor ICE agents in charge of deportation, also known as Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers, are trained to investigate financial fraud.
“None of those skills were asked for when they sought out volunteers, or when they pulled people, it was just… we just need people to go out there and flood the area,” the current ICE agent said.
“You would bring in a team of HSI special agents who have done that before, who have investigated that type of fraud,” he added, referring to Homeland Security Investigations, an agency within DHS.
The surge in Minneapolis is part of a broad nationwide push by the Trump Administration to meet President Donald Trump’s aim to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
To meet that goal, ICE has doubled its manpower from 10,000 to 22,000 in less than a year, thanks to its aggressive hiring campaign. To respond to the massive surge of new officers, ICE has shortened the training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia from 13 weeks to six weeks, NBC
first reported. The former agent called that a “recipe for disaster.”
“You can't train someone to do all the basic law enforcement stuff, let alone the law. Immigration law used to be a five or six-month course at the academy. How do you know that people are here legally unless you know the law?
You use Google?” the current ICE agent said.
The former ICE agent also said that this rushed training could lead to a domino effect as more senior ICE agents plan for retirement, and the new recruits, who didn’t have as much legal and enforcement training as previous generations, fill the gap.
Some retired agents have also been invited by ICE to rejoin the force, but according to the former ICE agent, the risk of going back outweighs staying retired.
“The biggest concern is jeopardizing your pension. And then, of course, violating the law.
If you're ordered and you know that you're violating the law and you say no, then you stand a chance of being terminated. And then you jeopardize your pension,” the former agent said, adding that some officers are asked to work for 16-hour shifts six to seven days a week. “For most of us, it's not worth it.”
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Asked about the public’s biggest misconception about ICE, both the current and former agent said that ICE, like all government agencies, is at the mercy of the Administration.
“Where was all this energy when the election was happening? Everyone knew this was what the Administration was going to do,” the agent said, adding that for the most part, the agents conducting deportations and arrests are not breaking the law.
“You're putting people in a position where they have to quit and try to find work in a really bad job market.
So they justify themselves, and they say, hey, it's legal, and as long as I'm not violating rights or doing something immoral or illegal, I'm going to do it because this is what the American voters voted for.”