Tracey Mumford

Those are the headlines.

I'm Tracy Mumford.

We'll be back tomorrow with the latest and the Friday News Quiz.

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines.

I'm Tracey Mumford.

Today's Tuesday, February 24th.

Here's what we're covering.

Ryan Schwenk was hired by ICE in 2021 and started teaching legal courses at a federal law enforcement training academy last year.

He shared his account yesterday in D.C.

at a forum organized by congressional Democrats.

Senate Democrats also released several dozen pages of internal ICE records that suggest the Trump administration has curtailed the basic training for agents, right as it's been staffing up.

Under Trump, ICE has been on a massive hiring spree, bringing in over 12,000 new officers and agents, more than double what it had before.

That surge has threatened to overwhelm the centers which train most federal agents.

In response, ICE officials scaled back the regimen.

The documents senators released include two different syllabi, one from July and one from this month, that appear to show a 40 percent decrease in training hours.

Other documents suggest that courses like use of force simulation training have been cut, along with some on immigration law and ISIS legal authorities.

Taken together, the new disclosures underscore concerns about the conduct and preparedness of agents from the Department of Homeland Security, who have shot and killed at least three U.S.

citizens this year.

When pressed by Congress earlier this month about whether ICE had lowered its standards, the acting director of the agency said, quote, the meat of the training was never removed.

And the DHS says that it's streamlined training without, quote, sacrificing basic subject matter content.