Ryan Schwenk

We could tell a cadet up and down that they were going to get themselves killed in the field or get arrested.

or violate the law with what they were doing.

And I hope, and I believe many of you guys listened to that, but it didn't matter if they didn't.

They could still graduate no matter what we saw them do.

We reached out to DHS to ask about all of this.

They didn't respond.

They did claim, though, in a statement in February that, quote, no training requirements have been removed.

The statement says that actually the training has been beefed up from eight hours a day to 12 hours a day.

It also somehow claims that the hours are the same number of hours that recruits have always received.

DHS says they're teaching the Fourth and Fifth Amendments in a way that is, quote, structured and comprehensive.

They called it integral.

When Ryan first made his report, it was about the memo.

That was his main concern.

But now, over five months of teaching, he'd seen so many things wrong with the training, he felt like that needed its own report.

And he felt like somebody needed to be the face of that to make it as credible as possible.

In January, immigration agents killed Rene Good and then Alex Bredy.

That same month, Ryan started talking to congressional staffers about going public, testifying to Congress.

He was going to take some time to relocate his family, and then he'd resign from the academy.

He told his wife, his parents, and his in-laws about his plan, but not all his siblings or extended family.

part of it was I don't want to burden them with certain things right um and then also you have to keep in mind I was working for the Department of Homeland Security I was working for the largest law enforcement agency in the United States I frankly wasn't confident that I could communicate with my family over the phone without conversations getting flagged really