Ice Barbie Ignores Fitness, Drug, Criminal History and Academic Standards

Yes, what was in the headline is true. In her zeal to swell the ranks of domestic terrorists with badges, aka ICE Agents standards have been ‘relaxed.’ Actually I think I’m being generous sayin relaxed because when you skip things ANY other federal employee (including for jobs that aren’t LE or even require some type of security clearance) taking and running their fingerprints is standard. So is doing at least a cursory background check like running someone’s name and Social Security number through NCIC. A freaking phone call! However ICE Barbie doesn’t want to bother with all that.

As a result The Daily Beast tells us people with criminal records  have made it through training. Six whole weeks they are ‘subjected’ to nowdays. (Yes, I’m being snarky) No having to do the REAL federal LE training at FLETC (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center) in Glynco Georgia for Noem’s agents! Ok, to the FBI has it’s own training academy but everyone else, even federal game wardens have to complete FLETC before going to agency specific training. No siree.  Anyway a mere six weeks of training and being handed a badge, a gun and lots of cool tactical gear including masks of course (they are free ti fashion their own as you have seen) Noem turns them loose. To paraphrase, ‘Cry Havoc, and let slip the goons of Trump.’

It’s been said the while the armed forces have met recruiting goals standards aren’t quite as high as back when I served. That was a loooooong time ago but it’s my understanding they stayed high. ICE? Especially now? Not so much, and in fact not very much at all. As I noted it’s a long list of categories where if someone’s willing to sign on the dotted line because they like beating up and terrorizing non-whites ICE Barbie lays out the welcome mat:

The linked article opens by dryly noting in the effort to boost hiring people have been allowed into training who weren’t ‘fully vetted.’  Some of that vetting isn’t all that tough. As I said, while a full background check should be done (I had to submit to one to obtain a mere Public Service (below Confidential) to work for FEMA. My higher clearance I’d had while on active duty in the Corps had long since expired. Initially as I said a simple phone check with NCIC would weed out anyone with a conviction be it state or federal. Administering and scoring a test is also pretty damned simple. So it having someone stand on a medical grade scale and writing down their height and weight. In short so much that ‘inadvertently’ ‘slipped through the cracks’ could have and SHOULD have been easily discovered. And somehow wasn’t:

The Department of Homeland Security outfit later found out that recruits in training had either failed drug tests, had criminal histories preventing them from joining, or didn’t meet physical fitness or academic criteria, one current and two former DHS officials told NBC News.

One recruit at the ICE training facility in Brunswick, Georgia, the current DHS official said, had been charged with strong-arm robbery and battery over a domestic violence incident.

The same official and the two former officials also said that some recruits in the six-week training course hadn’t completed one element necessary for background checks: submitting their fingerprints.

ICE’s vetting and drug test policies, the former officials said, have not been adhered to as strictly as it was before the agency sought to increase its staffing.

The Daily Beast states that most of the over 200 who have been dismissed since summer were let go for other than criminal convictions or drug use. The bulk didn’t wind up being up to academic of fitness standards. Here’s a thought. Since Pistol Petey Hegseth is on a tear to rid the DOD of “fat bodies’ I’m sure he and Noem can work something out. SHE will take them, giving them height and weight waivers due to them having come over from the armed forces. Of course she’ll want Hegesth to do some screening. At first she’ll want more than ‘fat bodies’ – she’ll want them to also have records showing they are problems in other ways. Fighting, both fellow troops and in bars for example.

Keep in mind that at part of the BBB the budget for ICE is set to go from ten billion to a hundred billion down the road. Hopefully Trump will be gone long before that funding ramps up that much. But if we manage to take back control of the government in 2026 and 2028 some SERIOUS house cleaning will need to be done at ICE, which never should have become it’s own division in the first place. That’s a much longer topic for another time. For now raise  hell over the fact that ICE Barbie is willing to take anyone she can slip through the process, be they criminals, druggies, idiots, fatbodies (especially coming over from DOD!) and lord knows what else that before now would have been laughed out of the door when they tried to sign up.

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