Because they “can” and “do.”

Some new ICE recruits have showed up to training without full vetting

The recruits have had criminal backgrounds, failed drug tests or were unable to meet physical or academic standards, raising concerns about the agency’s rush to hire immigration officers, sources told NBC News.

WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement has placed new recruits into its training program before they have completed the agency’s vetting process, an unusual sequence of events as the agency rushes to hire federal immigration officers to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy, one current and two former Homeland Security Department officials told NBC News.

ICE officials only later discovered that some of these recruits failed drug testing, have disqualifying criminal backgrounds or don’t meet the physical or academic requirements to serve, the sources said.

Staff at ICE’s training academy in Brunswick, Georgia, recently discovered one recruit had previously been charged with strong arm robbery and battery stemming from a domestic violence incident, the current DHS official said. They’ve also found as recently as this month that some recruits going through the six-week training course had not submitted fingerprints for background checks, as ICE’s hiring process requires, the current and former DHS officials said.

Per ICE policy, applicants are required to pass a drug test and undergo a security vetting through ICE’s human resources office prior to showing up for the training course. The former officials said that process was more strictly adhered to before a hiring surge that began this summer. That process was meant to weed out disqualified candidates before they would be sent to training.

Since the surge began, the agency has dismissed more than 200 new recruits while in training for falling short of its hiring requirements, according to recently collected internal ICE data reviewed by NBC News.

The majority of them failed to meet ICE’s physical or academic standards, according to the data. Just under 10 recruits were dismissed for criminal charges, failing to pass drug tests or safety concerns that should have been flagged in a background check prior to arriving at training, the data indicated and the current and former DHS officials confirmed.

The officials said there is growing concern that in the Trump administration’s race to expand the number of ICE agents to 10,000 by the end of the year, the agency could miss red flags in the backgrounds of some new recruits and inadvertently hire them.

“There is absolutely concern that some people are slipping through the cracks,” the current DHS official said. The official said many of the issues that have been flagged during training only surface because the recruits admitted they did not submit to fingerprinting or drug testing prior to arriving.

“What about the ones who don’t admit it?” the official said.

In a statement to NBC News, the Department of Homeland Security said most of its new recruits are former law enforcement officers and former ICE officers who go through a different process.

“The figures you reference are not accurate and reflect a subset of candidates in initial basic academy classes,” said DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin. “The vast majority of new officers brought on during the hiring surge are experienced law enforcement officers who have already successfully completed a law enforcement academy. This population is expected to account for greater than 85% of new hires. Prior-service hires follow streamlined validation but remain subject to medical, fitness, and background requirements.”