What to know: Four ways ICE is training new agents and scaling up

By REBECCA SANTANA Associated Press BRUNSWICK Ga AP Immigration and Customs Enforcement is an agency inside the Department of Homeland Protection that is integral to President Donald Trump s vision of carrying out the mass deportations he promised during the campaign Deportation officers within a unit called Enforcement and Removal Operations are the ones who are responsible for immigration enforcement They find and remove people from the United States who aren t American citizens and for a variety of reasons no longer can stay in the country Specific might have gone through immigration court and a judge ordered them removed Or they were arrested or convicted of certain crimes or they ve repeatedly entered the country illegally or overstayed a visa ICE also manages a growing grid of immigration detention facilities around the country where it holds people suspected of immigration violations Overall its sessions and how it carries them out have polarized multiple Americans in up-to-date months Todd Lyons acting director of U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE speaks to the press at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers FLETC in Brunswick Ga on Thursday Aug about the training project ICE officers go through AP Photo Fran Ruchalski After years when the number of deportation officers largely remained even the agency is now rapidly hiring Congress this summer passed decree giving ICE billion in new money to help speed up the pace of deportations That s nearly times the agency s current annual budget Nearly billion is for new staff Last week The Associated Press got a chance to visit the base in southern Georgia where new ICE recruits are trained and to talk to the agency s top leadership Here are details about four things ICE is doing that came out of those conversations ICE is surging its hiring ICE currently has about deportation officers and it is aggressively looking to beef up those numbers Acting Director Todd Lyons says he wants to hire an additional by year s end Todd Lyons acting director of U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE speaks to a group of trainees after they completed their time on the firing range at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers FLETC in Brunswick Ga on Thursday Aug AP Photo Fran Ruchalski The agency has launched a new recruiting website offered hiring bonuses as high as and is advertising at career expos Lyons explained the agency has already received applications plenty of from former officers New recruits are trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick Georgia That s a sprawling facility near the coast where federal law enforcement officers not just ICE agents from around the country live and train ICE is looking to more than double the number of instructors who train deportation officers Caleb Vitello who runs training for ICE says it has cut Spanish-language requirements to reduce training by five weeks and he s been looking for avenues to streamline the training and have recruits do more at the field offices where they re assigned ICE is also preparing for conflict As Trump s effort to deport millions of people has intensified violent episodes have unfolded as ICE seeks to arrest people Critics have disclosed ICE is being too heavy-handed in carrying out arrests while ICE says its people are the ones being attacked An Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE instructor demonstrates getting a lb dummy into a position to be handcuffed on the agility program at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers FLETC in Brunswick Ga on Thursday Aug AP Photo Fran Ruchalski Vitello reported the agency tracks every time officers use force as well as any time someone attacks its officers According to the agency s details from Jan through Aug there were broadcasted assaults of ICE officers compared with during the same period last year Lyons reported that after latest operations in Los Angeles turned violent ICE is making gas masks and helmets standard issue for new agents Right now we re seeing and we re having to adapt to all different scenarios that we were never trained for in the past he commented Lyons says the agency is also starting to send out measure teams to accompany agents making arrests We re not gonna allow people to throw rocks anymore because we re going to have our own agents and officers there to protect the ones that are indeed out there making that arrest And it s beefing up specialized units for risky situations About eight deportation officers dressed in military-style camouflage uniforms helmets and carrying an assortment of weapons stand outside a house yelling Police We have a warrant before entering and clearing the house Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE Special Response Unit members demonstrate how the crew enters a residence in the pursuit of a requested subject at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers FLETC in Brunswick Ga on Thursday Aug AP Photo Fran Ruchalski They are members of a Special Response Unit taking part in a demonstration at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center These officers are like a SWAT crew deportation officers with special training to assist in tough situations They also accompany detainees the agency deems dangerous when they are deported Everybody is trained to serve a warrant Vitello noted These guys are trained to serve high-risk warrants There are roughly deportation officers with the special training to serve on these teams and Lyons says they have been deployed to assist with immigration enforcement in Los Angeles Portland Oregon and Washington He noted he d like to have more such units but wouldn t put an exact number on how multiple Vitello stated they re also in the process of getting more of the specially armored vehicles ICE teaches whom agents can arrest and when New recruits to ICE receive training on immigration law and the Fourth Amendment which protects against unlawful searches Longtime officers get regular refreshers on these topics Related Articles Kilmar Abrego Garcia surrenders to ICE in Baltimore faces attainable deportation to Uganda Mexican drug lord Ismael El Mayo Zambada to plead guilty to federal charges Expect wellbeing insurance prices to rise next year brokers and experts say Tropical Storm Juliette forms in the Pacific as Fernand churns over open waters in the Atlantic Poll Worst MBTA station in Boston In limited situations ICE agents are allowed to enter someone s home Generally when they re seeking someone they re trying to remove from the country they have an administrative warrant as opposed to a criminal warrant That administrative warrant doesn t allow them to enter the house without first getting permission Vitello says the new recruits are taught about the different warrants and how the rules differ And they re taught how those who allowed ICE to enter their house can change their mind If somebody says Get out and you don t have your target you have to leave he announced Multiple videos on social media have shown ICE officers current car windows to pull someone out of a motorcycle and arrest that person As ICE sees it Vitello declared deportation officers do have the authority to arrest someone in a car or truck Vitello commented in the rare matter where a target was in a motor home officers would talk to the agency s lawyers first to figure out what protections apply Advocates for immigrants and the leadership have often disagreed about how much authority ICE has to make those arrests and where