Reacting to a NBC News report that the rush to put more masked ICE agents on the streets is resulting in a flood of applicants who have violent histories and possible criminal backgrounds, the panel on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” warned chaos on U.S. cities is about to take a turn for the worse.
As co-host Mike Brzezinski reported, “ICE officials later discovered that some recruits had criminal backgrounds, failed drug tests, or did not meet physical or academic standards. What's more, some recruits had not submitted fingerprints for background checks, which is a violation of ICE hiring policy. In fact, one recruit had prior charges for strong-armed robbery and battery related to domestic violence.”
“Additionally, nearly half of recruits failed the written exam, even with access to notes and textbooks,” she continued. “All of this as ICE has shortened its training program from 13 weeks to six weeks to accelerate the on-boarding process. ICE’s HR office is reportedly overwhelmed by more than 150,000 applicants, spurred by a $50,000 signing bonus."
That led co-host Joe Scarborough to pounce with, “These are the people that are going around again, throwing people to the ground many times without anybody seeing their identity.”
"It is, man, you talk about a recipe for disaster,” he exclaimed. “I mean, we're there.”
“Yeah, I mean, when you have masked agents who haven't really been vetted, who haven't passed the test, who've taken the signing bonus and just been kind of put on the front lines, you're going to get some of these incidents we've seen most recently down on Canal Street, roughing up some of the guys selling fake purses down there,” co-host Willie Geist chipped in.
“But yes, you would like to see this is obviously a part of the president's mass deportation efforts,” he continued. “He needs the bodies. He needs people to be out in the streets, knocking on these doors, kicking down these doors, taking people out of vehicles and all the things that we've been seeing in these videos.”
“But he needs people, he needs bodies, so they don't have to pass the test,” he added. “They have put a lot of money, Joe, into ICE, and they're trying to get the people — well, a lot of money into ICE , but obviously very little focus on training or the proper training.”