Ryan Schwenk

They were backlogged.

They had people showing up to the academy who had not completed background checks.

And my first response to hearing this thing about the background checks was, wow, that's a growth, like a teething pain, right?

Like, this is a problem.

This is something they're going to solve very quickly, right?

This was a mistake because we just started.

We just started this big process.

This was clearly an administrative error, and they're going to fix it.

As we later found out, it was an issue that recurred repeatedly at the academy.

And there was another issue that came up on that first day.

We're in this big conference room, and my supervisor and I are in there.

I think there are a couple other people in the room.

I couldn't name who exactly.

But she shows me the memos, or my supervisor shows me these memos, and I'm told, you can read it, but you're not allowed to keep a copy of it, and you're not allowed to take notes on it.

What did you make of that?

I had never received an order like that ever in my career at any time.

It was bizarre to me, and it was a massive red flag the moment she said that to me, before I even read the memo.

To me, it was a massive red flag before I read the first word on the page.

Then he read the memo.

It was issued by Todd Lyons, the acting director for ICE.