ICE is Training Civilians to Conduct Violent Raids on Immigrants
New details about a program from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) are getting attention after the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) published a trove of internal documents about ICE’s ‘Citizens Academy’ programs.
The academy trains civilians to operate multiple firearms, use lethal force, perform surveillance on immigrants, and conduct raids while also acting as a public relations initiative to try and sway public opinion about ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the HSI unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“We ran Border Patrol Citizen Academies back when I was an agent as well,” Jenn Budd, former Senior Border Patrol Agent, whistleblower, and author of Against the Wall told Unicorn Riot. “The entire goal is to indoctrinate locals into why it’s okay for us to violate people’s rights.”
CCR’s collection of internal documents was obtained from ICE through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation and published on Oct. 1. The documents were acquired by the Immigrant Defense Project and Organized Communities Against Deportations with legal assistance from Beyond Legal Aid, Latino Justice, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Citizens Academies began in Puerto Rico in 2014 and have operated nationally in over a dozen cities since 2019.
“Deadly Force Encounters”
The training materials that show where to strike people with batons to subdue them are but the tip of the iceberg in terms of violence. While the ICE presentation on using force contains the “Monadnock Baton Chart” (presumably named after baton manufacturer Monadnock) showing the degrees of damage inflicted on a suspect based on where they’re struck with a baton, the majority of this part of Citizens Academy training covers when to use deadly force.
Deadly force is the primary focus of Citizens Academy training. A firearms training held in Atlanta in October 2019 at the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department Firing Range included proper handling of handguns, shotguns and assault rifles. It provided training on when to shoot suspects while referring to public criticism of fatal encounters with law enforcement as “Monday morning quarterbacking” and suggesting how much of a problem public scrutiny is for law enforcement.
“I like this drill as it forces a very quick decision of shoot/no-shoot and identifying your threat. I believe that it will highlight the speed in which law enforcement has to make deadly force decisions and also why Monday morning quarterbacking is such a problem for officers/agents who are involved in deadly force encounters.”
Slide #9 in the Homeland Security Investigations Citizens Academy Firearms Training material
Another presentation from 2021 in Kansas City, MO provides a “Live Weapons Fire” training schedule that lists weapons to be used at the Sugar Creek Range that October. They include various pistols, shotguns, and M4 rifles. The document lists “Scenario Training” and describes how the scenarios will be played out. Two are considered “SHOOT Scenarios” and one is focused on teaching citizens about shooting an unarmed suspect.
One scenario describes the person role-playing a suspect wanted for unlawful possession of a firearm as having his back to the students when they enter the room. When asked his name, he pulls out a wallet and quickly turns toward the students in an “aggressive” manner. The instruction says that the goal of this scenario is to teach about shooting an unarmed person.
A slide show presentation titled, “Gun PowerPoint 2,” covers training on engaging targets when in street clothes. The instruction advises students to yell “‘Drop the gun!’ while drawing and firing on the target.” Also under the title, “Engaging Targets,” the training suggests that “videos, cameras, phones, and witnesses” are targets to engage presumably to limit “Monday morning quarterbacking” from the public.
The same presentation contains a slide titled “Survival” that includes the phrases “NEVER EVER GIVE UP, NEVER CONCEDE DEFEAT, I WILL NOT DIE THIS WAY, I MUST GO HOME TO MY FAMILY, and HOW YOU TRAIN IS HOW YOU WILL FIGHT.” CCR described the hyperbolic language as “phrases that seem taken from a Hollywood war movie.”
“Campaign of Misinformation”
In publishing its findings, CCR highlighted three key issues with the program, from violence and firearms training making up the core of the Citizen Academy to how it’s used to develop “positive media coverage” for ICE through its recruitment of strategically selected people to attend the training and provide favorable narratives. Those selected for the training are represented by people connected with banks and law enforcement, or are journalists and academics.
“In this current moment of widespread racist and violent sentiment towards immigrants from local and nationally elected officials, not to mention ongoing civilian vigilantism against immigrants, it remains ever more pressing that the public learns what their tax dollars are funding and in what violent tactics and harmful anti-immigrant sentiments ICE is training hand-selected participants. The ICE Citizens Academy program should be permanently shut down.”
Center for Constitutional Rights report
According to an internal HSI Academy Launch memo from 2021, the key goal of these programs is to change the narrative and the “negative opinion that exists toward our agency” – dismissing ICE’s history of racism, bigotry, and the inhumane treatment of nonwhite immigrants as “misinformation.”
“The current negative opinion that exists toward our agency, fueled by harmful headlines or political views, has in certain areas, created a mistrust in our communities. This campaign of misinformation has led to a challenging operating environment for our agents, one that has become an officer safety concern not experienced by other law enforcement agencies in our country.”
Homeland Security Investigations 2021 Citizens Academy Launch memo
Another example is found in a summary document entitled “Success Stories,” highlighting how numerous investigations for HSI Tampa have resulted from “direct referrals provided by the HSI Tampa Citizens Academy graduates.” The summary from Tampa continues by stating that alumni also provided “subject matter expertise” in various areas such as precious gems authentication, financial fraud, and real estate schemes.
“In addition, the relationships formed with the citizens have brought positive media coverage as several alumni are members of the media, thus allowing the agency to effectively create and bolster awareness of HSI and its broad range of investigative areas.”
Tampa Homeland Security Investigations summary
Media Infiltration
Other examples include an email chain boasting about a Los Angeles Times reporter having an “eye-opening experience” after attending a Citizens Academy training. The emails include “talking points we put together for the nationwide rollout” which are redacted and praising the unnamed LA Times reporter which an HSI official said they were “very pleased” with.
While the reporter’s name is redacted in the email chain, the link to Brittany Mejia’s 2018 article provided by a public affairs spokesperson for DHS (whose name is also redacted) tells us who they are most likely referring to. The article is focused on her experience attending the training and is positive about the Citizens Academy, as detailed by ICE officials in the email chain.
“Los Angeles Times reporter [redacted] is in the final stages of a story she has been working on for several months about Homeland Security Investigations. Through her recent participation in HSI Los Angeles’ Citizens Academy, ongoing interviews with HSI Los Angeles including Los Angeles SAC [redacted] and ASAC and Citizens Academy Director [redacted] reporter has had an eye-opening experience as the breadth and scope of HSI’s mission and the challenges that HSI has in 1) being a part of the agency that most people think of as immigration enforcement only and 2) the state and local laws and policies continuing to be enacted that prevent HSI from information-sharing and/or from working together with longstanding law enforcement partners.”
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson email
The Citizen Academies “Communications Plan” for 2022 lists the types of people ICE wants to recruit for the program. The bullet points read, “Media, Hill, Academic leaders, Business/community leaders, Prosecutors and local and state law enforcement, Local citizens, Non-governmental organizations.” Various email chains discuss not holding open calls for the community to join the program and instead relying on “existing community relationships.” The term “Hill” usually means people affiliated with U.S. Congress and “Capitol Hill.”
“Participants only get to see the agencies’ prejudiced view of undocumented people. They show them the small percentage of undocumented people who have violent criminal backgrounds. Then they use those locals to do press interviews to overwhelm the coverage with positive news about the agency. It’s the same thing they do with the Border Patrol Youth Programs.”
Jenn Budd
One email chain shows ICE officials officially inviting local ABC affiliate KVUE in Austin, Texas to attend a training. A separate email chain shows ICE agents in Texas celebrating two Telemundo reporters participating in the program. Another email chain among HSI agents from Tucson, Arizona discusses whether to invite three or four journalists. Emails also show Texas Governor Greg Abbott being asked to give a keynote speech at a Citizens Academy in Austin.
“The Bank People”
While recruitment efforts cover a broader range of potential participants, people associated with banks are heavily represented. Many of the emails show various ICE officials asking to be kept updated on “the bank people,” a significant portion of the Citizens Academy invitees.
The existence of an HSI New York slideshow presentation titled “US Banks Citizen Academy 2020” was made public in CCR’s report. However, the content of that presentation was not.
A 2017 email from the Head of Investigations for Financial Crime Compliance at Standard Chartered Bank sent to Tucson Citizen Academy officials shows an eager bank official willing to recruit their employees into the program. Attachments in that email include one titled, “Citizens Academy Nomination Form – NY 2018,” and an “HSI Nomination Form,” highlighting how selective recruitment for these trainings is dictated rather than opening them up to the public.
Controlling narratives — through social media metering certain accounts and posts or dictating what the news reports by leaving out key facts and contexts — is what most governments aspire to do. These expanded efforts control what the public sees and frame narratives that gloss over growing federal law enforcement powers over U.S. citizens. Only providing access to journalists who will be favorable to them underscores the manipulative nature of these programs.
As the humanitarian crises caused by U.S. border and immigration policies continue to worsen, Border Patrol and ICE continue to push for an unprecedented level of control over public perception and oversight of their activity.
Other Key Findings
Additional details from the CCR’s review of the FOIA documents include:
- A September 2020 ICE Citizen Academy program in Chicago was canceled after community mobilization against the project. It would have been the first Citizens Academy run by Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), the division of ICE that actually carries out deportations. Most of the Citizen Academy programs put on by ICE have been under the purview of Homeland Security Investigations (ICE HSI), the section of the agency more focused on criminal enforcement, as opposed to civil immigration violations. (HSI was partly formed out of the U.S. Customs Service and there has been a history of culture conflict within the agency, as senior agents noted in 2018 (PDF).)
- “ICE also seems to be aware that individuals who could be attracted to the Citizens Academy program may already be armed, advising participants to “leave any personal weapons in your vehicle” before entering a firing range.” – CCR
- ICE works with local law enforcement agencies to promote and conduct Citizens Academy programs, even in so-called ‘Sanctuary Cities’ that have policies prohibiting local police from collaborating with ICE.
- Citizens Academy programs are not actually open to the public, just looking to influence the public. Potential participants are carefully hand-picked by the local ICE HSI field office Community Relations Officer (CRO), who seek out corporate/finance leaders and those perceived as friendly to ICE’s media agenda in the clergy, nonprofit and media sectors. Companies with higher-ups getting cozy with ICE via the Academies include Starbucks, Costco, Bank of America, US Bank and Citigroup.
- While specific “local media partners” are sought out by ICE to attend Citizens Academy programs, an ICE FAQ about a Citizen Academy answers the question “Can members of the Media apply?” by saying journalists may attend, just “not in their official capacity as journalists.”
Resources
Files linked below – mirrored at vault.unicornriot.ninja – are all documents released via the FOIA lawsuit filed by the Immigrant Defense Project, Organized Communities Against Deportations, Beyond Legal Aid, Latino Justice, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
- Academies_List_2020.pdf (2 Page PDF 294.3 KB)
- Bank_Email_442.pdf (2 PAGE PDF – 257.9 KB)
- Batton_Chart_+_Use_of_Force_PP.pdf (23 PAGE PDF – 2.2 MB)
- CA_Shooting_Instructions_4488.pdf (30 PAGE PDF – 2.5 MB)
- Dont_bring_your_own_weapons_2770.pdf (1 PAGE PDF – 185.3 KB)
- Firearms_Training_PP_1.pdf (17 PAGE PDF – 4.2 MB)
- Firearms_Training_PP_2.pdf (19 PAGE PDF – 1.9 MB)
- Force_Mulitplier_Slide_116.pdf (1 PAGE PDF – 145.6 KB)
- Gun_PowerPoint_2.pdf (28 PAGE PDF – 4.3 MB)
- HSI_Academy_Launch_Memo.pdf (4 PAGE PDF – 668.3 KB)
- HSI_Comms_Plan_2996.pdf (6 PAGE PDF – 801.5 KB)
- Hit_it_hard_4167.pdf (1 PAGE PDF – 113.3 KB)
- K9s_2708.pdf (4 PAGE PDF – 533.9 KB)
- KVUE_ABC_3271.pdf (3 PAGE PDF – 241.2 KB)
- LA_Recruitment_Email.pdf (1 PAGE PDF – 167.1 KB)
- LA_Times_3264.pdf (7 PAGE PDF – 764.6 KB)
- NYPD-Firing-RangeLtr_518.pdf (1 PAGE PDF – 231.2 KB)
- Outreach_Email.pdf (7 PAGE PDF – 901.6 KB
- PP_105-113.pdf (9 PAGE PDF – 1 MB)
- Recruitment_Email.pdf (3 PAGE PDF – 1.1 MB)
- Reporters_and_Ted_Cruz_3059.pdf (1 PAGE PDF – 156.1 KB)
- San_Juan_Academy_Brochure.pdf (15 PAGE PDF – 3.1 MB)
- Seattle_Athletic_3983.pdf (1 PAGE PDF – 126.5 KB)
- StakeHolders_Email_Chain.pdf (9 PAGE PDF – 4.2 MB)
- Success_Stories_2002.pdf (2 PAGE PDF – 387.6 KB)
- Tucson_Recruitment_3932.pdf (2 PAGE PDF – 233.7 KB)
- Types_of_Guns_2247.pdf (15 PAGE PDF – 1.9 MB)
- US_Bank_865.pdf (1 PAGE PDF – 127.5 KB)
- telemundo_yay_2984.pdf (2 PAGE PDF – 186.8 KB)
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