ICE Recruits Are Failing Background Checks, Drug Tests, Fitness Standards, & Open-Book Exams
Barf Bag: It turns out that the folks most eager to brutalize non-white people aren’t exactly our country’s best or brightest.
Photo: Getty Images ImmigrationPolitics
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People may know that the Trump administration is seeking to hire and train 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents by the end of the year to carry out an openly racist mass deportation agenda. The Big, Ugly Bill that passed in July gives the agency $75 billion over four years, nearly tripling its budget.
In order to meet that recruiting goal, ICE is throwing signing bonuses of up to $50,000 and student loan forgiveness at applicants, as well as lowering its standards. Previously, people had to be younger than 37 or 40 to apply, depending on the job, but that age cap has now been lifted entirely. How is this all going? Not well!
It turns out that the folks most eager to brutalize non-white people aren’t exactly our country’s best or brightest.
First, The Atlantic reported this week that more than a third of new recruits could not pass a physical fitness test in which they have to complete 15 push-ups, 32 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in less than 14 minutes, 25 seconds. (That’s a per-mile pace of about 9:37.) Four anonymous officials told the outlet they were concerned about the quality of recruits being fast-tracked onto U.S. streets just to meet Trump’s goal. Currently, people self-certify that they can complete the test, but it becomes apparent once they get to the agency’s training facility in Georgia that a lot of them are lying. Per the Atlantic:
An email from ICE headquarters to the agency’s top officials on October 5 lamented that “a considerable amount of athletically allergic candidates” had been showing up to the academy; they had “misrepresented” their physical condition on application forms. The email directed leaders at ICE’s field offices to conduct preliminary fitness exams with new recruits before sending them to the academy.
Incredible stuff.
Then, on Wednesday, NBC News reported that ICE has advanced recruits to the training program before the agency’s vetting process is fully complete because they’re rushing to get people into uniform. That has led to people traveling to Georgia for training, only for officials to learn that they failed a drug test or have past or pending criminal charges, though that has been a problem for fewer than 10 people, sources said. Still, some recruits hadn’t even submitted their fingerprints for necessary background checks.
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