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Howard Schweber on training for and protocols of ICE agents

UW-Madison political science professor emeritus Howard Schweber discusses differences among immigration officers and other federal law enforcement in terms of their training and operational practices.

By Frederica Freyberg | Here & Now

February 3, 2026

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Howard Schweber on differences among immigration officers and other law enforcement.


Frederica Freyberg:
There's been a lot of discussion about protocol and training and...

Howard Schweber:
Yeah, what people don't know is that a study in 2022 found that immigration officers are convicted of crimes at five times the rate any other federal force, that the rate of crimes committed by immigration officers is higher than the rate of crimes committed by people, illegal aliens. People don't know that...

Frederica Freyberg:
And, and I mean...

Howard Schweber:
But the training for them was shortened to 47 days in a farcical attempt to honor the 47th president, and that every review that has been done by police of the tactics that these officers use have agreed that they're absolutely appallingly terrible. They give contradictory commands. They resort to violence much too quickly. They engage in aggressive assaults. There have been more than 2,300 rulings by judges that immigration detentions have been unlawful, and we've seen countless deployments of gas and non-lethal weapons, that in any other context — in any other context — each one of those events would've required a police report and an internal investigation. For these guys, this is normal practice.

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