Federal agents conduct an immigration raid days after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., January 13, 2026. REUTERS/Ryan Murphy
New ICE agents are directly trained to ignore constitutional rights despite President Donald Trump’s assertions to the contrary, according to a recent report by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
At a forum called by congressional Democrats on Monday, former ICE teacher Ryan Schwank from a Georgia training center will testify that the agents are trained to ignore the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.
“ICE is lying to Congress and the American people about the steps it is taking to ensure its 10,000 new officers faithfully uphold the Constitution,” Schwank said in a draft of the statement he plans on giving before Congress. Describing ICE as a “broken” federal agency, Schwank will state that the new agents are directed to ignore rights such as that to not experience an unwarranted home invasion.
Schwank is not the first prominent individual to accuse ICE of violating the Constitution. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote a letter last month to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claiming to have heard reports of a “secret” policy in which agents were told to “circumvent the privacy protections” in the Fourth Amendment by not using a judicial warrant and instead utilizing an administrative order.
Similarly earlier this month a liberal leaning watchdog nonprofit called American Oversight obtained Trump administration emails demonstrating that instances of "lethal force or non-lethal efforts to physically restrain or subdue people or neutralize threats" increased "rapidly" among law enforcement officers involved in immigration after Trump returned to the White House, and that relevant officials were aware of this trend. Despite these criticisms, the Trump administration insists that ICE is abiding by the Constitution and that its agents are victims of persecution from the public.
“Can you believe it?” former Republican Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) said earlier this month regarding these criticisms. Sarcastically acting like someone upset at an unreasonable demand, Walsh complained on behalf of ICE that “they want judicial warrants! The American people are demanding that ICE have and use judicial warrants if they want to enter a home or a private business, you know, those pesky judicial warrants! That pesky Constitution!”
While Walsh is a longtime critic of Trump, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — a longtime Trump supporter — joined the chorus of Trump immigration critics last month.
“Americans don’t want to see the police behaving like a mob, Americans don’t want to see people killed in the streets, and Americans don’t want to see the kind of hunting down people in a way that really demeans the process,” Gingrich said during an appearance on Fox Business.
“We need a national conversation about what we’re going to do, about people who’ve come here, some of them 20 years ago, who’ve been obeying the law, paying taxes, good neighbors, have kids, go to PTA,” Gingrich added. “Very few Americans want to see the police walk in and pick them up and deport them.”