Some new ICE recruits have shown up to training without full vetting

ICE has placed new recruits into its training program before they have completed the agency’s vetting process, officials told NBC News.

WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed new recruits into its training program before they have completed the agency’s vetting process, an unusual sequence of events as it rushes to hire federal immigration officers to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy, a current and two former Homeland Security Department officials told NBC News.

ICE officials only later discovered that some of the recruits failed drug testing, have disqualifying criminal backgrounds or don’t meet the physical or academic requirements to serve, the sources said.

Staff members at ICE’s training academy in Brunswick, Georgia, recently discovered one recruit had previously been charged with strong-arm robbery and battery stemming from a domestic violence incident, the current DHS official said. They’ve also found as recently as this month that some recruits going through the six-week training course hadn’t submitted fingerprints for background checks, as ICE’s hiring process requires, the current and former DHS officials said.

Per ICE policy, applicants are required to pass drug tests and undergo security vetting through ICE’s human resources office before they show up for the training course. The former officials said the process was more strictly adhered to before a hiring surge that began this summer. The process was meant to weed out disqualified candidates before they would be sent to training.

Since the surge began, ICE has dismissed more than 200 new recruits while they were in training for falling short of its hiring requirements, according to recently collected internal ICE data reviewed by NBC News.