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ICE agents who are being deployed in Minneapolis and other cities around the country may not be as well trained as your local law enforcement or the regular military or those kind of things.
There's been a lot of talk about that, especially during the
the operation in Minneapolis.
But now there is actually a whistleblower, a former ICE training instructor.
Ryan Schwenk is his name.
He says the agency's program for new deportation officers is, quote, deficient, defective, and broken.
End quote.
That should be another rejoin instead of... That would be good.
He resigned February 13th and...
He was at a forum
that
And by the way, Ryan Schwank is not just a training instructor, he is also an attorney.
So he is very versed with the law and understands the constitutional...
and some of the motives that go into the ICE training and the ICE agents.
And before we jump into discussion, I just want to play his audio because this is pretty eye-opening.
It's cut for, please.
ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution.
And they were attempting to cloak it in secrecy by demanding that I lie about it.
I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution.
when I joined ICE on August 1st, 2021 as an assistant chief counsel.
I followed that oath for four and a half years, working side by side with ICE officers.
And I followed it when I resigned on February 13th, 2026, a little over a week ago, so that I could speak to you today.
For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program, cutting 240 hours
of vital classes from a 584-hour program, classes that teach the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention, and the limits of officers' authority.
For example, they ceased all of the legal instructions regarding use of force.
This means that cadets are not taught what it means to be objectively reasonable.
The very standard which the law requires them to meet when deciding whether or not to use deadly force.
Our jobs as instructors are to teach them so well that they can make split second decisions about what they can and cannot do in life or death situations.
Yet in the name of churning out an endless stream of officers,
DHS leadership has dismantled the academic and practical tests that we need to know if cadets can safely and lawfully perform their job.
He is a former ICE training instructor and an attorney.
He was at a forum yesterday and we could have stopped that audio after the first sentence.
that ICE trainees are being taught to disregard the Constitution.
Full stop right there.
He then goes on to explain in terrifying detail what that means.
That piece of audio, if that doesn't scare you and enrage you, then you're really not paying attention.
And Jamie, I want to get your thought on this.
The Republicans not showing up.
Is that because they don't want to give it credence or they know it's true and they don't want to be faced with
What he's going to say because they have no argument against it.
You are responsible.
Yes, absolutely.
And I think that is almost worse than not caring.
Because then at that point, you know the difference between right and wrong.
You know that constitutional, parts of the constitution are not being upheld.
You know that these ICE agents are being taught to not adhere to these rights that...
all people, not just citizens of the United States, but all persons are given in this country.
And you're okay with that to the point where you can skip this particular forum to hear what this gentleman has to say and to tell you the truth about what these practices are.
And I think that actually makes it worse than if you just don't care, the culpability.
Well, and they also, to go back to what you said when you first introduced Ryan Schwenk, he is not just... Right.
firearms instructor which is no shade on firearms instructors but when you have he's a training instructor and a constitutional attorney they know they can't push him around they know if they were to if they were to listen to him and then ask him questions he was going to have answers that would not comfortably sit with them and when you know when all this was happening in Minneapolis we had a long conversation about use of force
and training training of officers and we naively thought well your local law enforcement from from the smallest town deputy to state police to everybody federal officers are all trained on use of force and the use of deadly force and when it happens and now to hear that they've erased that part of the training for these ICE officers it's no wonder that these murders are happening at the hands of ICE because these
these officers, and I'm going to use that term much more loosely now
that I've heard
These officers have no comprehension.
They don't have the mental capacity and the training to make those split second decisions, as he said.
And yes, there will be life or death situations.
It is a dangerous job.
But you have to be, you should be trained so well.
That when you make that decision, which I can't imagine having to make that decision to pull that trigger
but that it means something and you know you had no other options.
Gary from Madison listening on WMDX this morning texting in saying Republicans do not care but to only stay in power.
Now if you want to chime in on the conversation this morning, that number 1-855-752-4842-185575 Civic.
As part of his testimony, Schwenke said that
the changes are part of this push to hire 10,000 new officers very quickly.
And he alleged that ICE actually misled Congress by saying no critical material had been cut.
Documents cited by Senate Democratic staff reportedly show fewer required exams and reduced use to force simulation training.
And Schwenk gets into a little bit of that in his testimony.
Now, obviously the Department of Homeland Security strongly denies any of these allegations brought by Schwenk.
DHS says recruits still receive 56 days of academic training, additional on-the-job supervision and comprehensive instruction on firearms, de-escalation tactics, and fourth and fifth amendment protections.
Now, here's what I'm gonna say to that.
Schwenk actually addresses that if you listen to him carefully.
He says that they're being given that training, but it is cut short.
It is not- It's
So when that's happening, yes, if you're the Department of Homeland Security, if that makes you feel better at night saying, yeah, we train these new agents, we gave them their $50,000 bonus, we gave them all the proper training, and we're gonna send them loose.
If that's what helps you sleep at night, I guess so be it.
But I think the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretty would completely disagree with the training that you are giving these particular ICE agents.
It used to be 21.
Now, Schwank says he's trained people who are 18 and 19.
Let's be honest.
And this is no shade on 18 and 19 year olds, but you're just getting out of high school.
Your brain isn't even fully developed.
You're a dope.
And that's okay because we were all dopes when we were 18 and 19.
They have no business that young.
They can't even have a beer, but we're going to give them a gun.
We're going to train them haphazardly at best.
And then we're going to put them out on the streets to what?
Get to finally be the school bully.
They've always wanted to be we're gonna we're gonna pick out their worst personality traits and magnify those so that now they can terrorize people and punch Protesters it makes none of this makes any sense, but it that's that's the commonality of this whole
say
Are you capable of?
absorbing all of that information having it at your fingertips you have to be it's it's the old ten thousand hours to be an expert you have to train and train and train to get this stuff in your head so that you don't have to stop and think and wonder and go back through and go I remember the test and we studied no you've got to know this right if you're 18
You know, maybe some people can but not getting trained enough now to find out we will never know no 18 or 19 year old can can handle it because we're not giving them what they need
You can support border security, which I do.
You can support deportations, which in a lot of instances, depending on the circumstances, I do, because I'm not above admitting that I need to see the facts of a case.
You cannot cut corners on constitutional rights, though.
And if what Schwank is saying about the Fourth Amendment not being taught properly, that's not optional.
That is part of our bill of rights.
It's part of the Constitution.
And that's not dependent on who is sitting in the White House.
When you rush to higher
thousands of officers and you start shortening this training
Mistakes are going to happen.
We've seen those mistakes happen with our own eyes.
And that's when rights are starting to get violated.
And when that happens, these cases fall apart in court and trust in law enforcement erodes even more.
And that's what actually worries me going forward.
Is this administration doing so much harm with what they're doing with DHS agents, with ICE agents, that at some point in time, we're just going to have zero trust?
Is that their overall plan?
Like, these are the things that start going through my head when I start having
these conversations and start hearing testimony from people like Ryan Schwank.
It doesn't matter if you have confidence in any of these agencies as long as you do what you're told.
If you comply, that's fine.
Whether you comply because you agree, whether you comply out of fear, whether you comply for whatever reason, you are doing what they want so they win.
Right.
It doesn't matter and they're going to keep telling us
What they want us to hear doesn't have to be the truth.
They'll gaslight us and is and the more people complain and the more people push back the firmer the boot will get on our necks, but we you know don't
Don't don't put it in terms of trust.
They don't care if we trust
them I mean if you're gonna give somebody a badge you're gonna give somebody a gun and you're gonna give somebody the authority to essentially enter somebody somebody's home I want them trained properly.
I want them to know what the rights are I want them to know how those jobs should be done because to me that's not anti-government.
That's not anti-ice.
It's not anti immigration It's pro-constitution and all of those things can work in conjunction together.
It is 7 19 right now you are
listening to Daybreak.
Ooh, we've got another fun game of swipe or stay coming up in just
moments.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
Let's break out of the bubble and see what's happening out there in pop culture.
It's Swiper Stay on Daybreak.
But no, it's I listened and I didn't pay attention when Parker said we were coming back.
We were talking to
we were talking to Dave who was
listening on the stream.
Dave, thanks.
But it is time for Swiper's Day.
Oh, it's our daily game where Frank, usually this is about pop culture.
I have a feeling.
Oh, no, that's factor fiction is later.
Yes.
Yes, I forget.
We got two games today.
Sorry.
We do.
We're going to stay on this one.
Eddie Van Halen's Kramer guitar.
Yes.
It's set to hit auction today.
It's a Kramer red, white and black striped guitar.
You know, he's had a couple of different colors.
He had white and black stripes.
He had yellow and black, but this one is.
probably the most famous colorway.
It's for sad reasons.
I'm just going to give you the heads up right now.
The PAPS Theater released a statement yesterday announcing the postponement of the Steve Martin and Martin Short Show.
Oh, yeah.
Friday.
This came after the tragic passing of Martin Short's daughter Catherine yesterday.
The PAPS Theater group said in a statement that the tickets will remain good for a later date.
So it's just a postponement.
It's not canceled.
Personally, I have seen.
Steve Martin and Martin Short do their show together.
It is phenomenal.
So
Didn't I read yesterday too, the PAPS Theater was actually just named as like one of the best theaters in the country.
I believe I read that somewhere.
I did not imagine that.
I don't quote me on it, but I am I'm fairly, I don't remember all the details.
I took in a lot of info yesterday, getting ready for the State of the Union, but the PAPS was actually named to be one of the best theaters, I believe.
All right, what's, yeah, Martin.
So Martin Short's daughter, they think she shot herself.
Yeah.
Same day Robert Carradine committed suicide.
And then my wife goes, you know, it's very unusual for women to shoot themselves.
I was like, what are you talking about?
She took a bunch of criminal justice class.
She goes, we talked about that in school.
I was like, what class were you taking?
So it was just a weird...
All right, we're going to say Gavin Newsom's recently released to the top of the bestseller charts just hours after its online release.
Young man in a hurry.
A memoir of discovery is billed as an intimate, employment account and identity belonging and the defining moments that inspired a life of politics.
Guys, can we say that Gavin Newsom is definitely throwing his hat into the ring for this
Want to join in on the conversation?
Call or text 855-75-CIVIC.
Brian and
735 right now.
Thank you so much for joining us on the Civic Media Network.
You are listening to Daybreak, and if you're in the Wausau area listening on WXCO or in Eau Claire listening on 93.5 the tap, or even in Wisconsin Rapids this morning listening on WFHR, we are certainly glad that you are joining us.
My name is Jamie Martenson.
A coalition of Wisconsin school districts, including Green Bay, also teachers and parents, they file a lawsuit in Eau Claire County Circuit Court.
They're arguing that the state's school funding system is unconstitutional.
Jeff Mandela is with us.
He's from Law Forward.
They're a pro-democracy nonprofit that uses strategic litigation to ensure that in Wisconsin, democracy includes all of us.
You can go to lawforward.org to get all the information.
Thanks for being here.
We appreciate your time.
Let's start at the beginning.
So what is being claimed in this lawsuit?
And I mentioned teachers and parents and districts, but who is involved?
Sure.
Good morning.
This case is being brought by five communities around our state.
When I say communities, what I mean is the school district, teachers, whether that's the local union,
and or individual teachers, parents and students coming together and saying that our schools have not been funded properly in this state for decades.
And that builds across time and we are now reaching a crisis point where the schools have no choice but to go to the courts.
Well, it's really not according to us.
According to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a sound basic education requires that schools are preparing students to be active members of our society, active civic participants, and that requires education to...
get them to a point of competency in a number of subjects that are specified in statute.
So English and science and social studies, but it also requires opportunities for foreign language instruction, for art and music and physical education.
And when you look around the state today, the state funding to schools has fallen so much that school districts simply cannot meet all the requirements they are required to meet.
Well, I think there are two things, Brian.
First, things have gotten worse across time.
So the last time that this was litigated was in the late 90s.
And in the year 2000, the Wisconsin Supreme Court essentially said, we don't have to tell you exactly.
what the state constitution means about school finance, because we can tell you that things aren't bad enough to be unconstitutional now.
But 25, 26 years later, things are significantly worse.
The second reason right now is because the schools have tried so many other things, and we are at the breaking point where there are no
No more options.
And your listeners know that because what they're seeing all across the state is referendum after referendum after referendum asking for more money.
And the reason that their local school districts keep having to ask for money is because the state isn't doing its job of providing that money.
The Constitution since 1848 has very specifically said the legislature shall
create and maintain the system of public schools, and the legislature has fallen down on the job.
This isn't a new problem.
As you mentioned, this has been years long in the making.
So if inflation adjustments had continued since around 2009, districts say they'd be getting just around just over $3,300 more per student today.
Should lawmakers be restoring those adjustments going forward?
Well, that's certainly one possibility.
There are an infinite number of ways to fund a school system.
It's incredibly complicated, and it's not our job as plaintiffs, nor is it the court's job to tell the legislature exactly how to do it, but it is the court's job.
to tell the legislature that what it's doing isn't enough.
And $3,300 a student might not sound like very much, but in inflation adjusted dollars, we are spending $2 billion a year less than we were in 2009.
Yeah, that's a great question.
I want to be clear that the suit does not attack.
private school vouchers, it is not seeking to stop the voucher program.
But you cannot tell the story of school finance in Wisconsin and explain what's really happening without acknowledging the rapid growth of school vouchers so that last year school vouchers pulled more than $700 million out of our public school budget.
That's literally when students outside of Milwaukee take a voucher.
and go to a private school, the school district has to pay that money back to the state.
And the voucher student, more money goes to the voucher school than the school district got from the state for the student to start with.
Obviously that is becoming a drain then on our public school systems, which then is in turn why you're sitting here today, right?
This is why these lawsuits, this lawsuit essentially exists in some degree because of what's happening with the voucher system and versus the public school system.
Well, what I would say is that the public school system is really under attack and in crisis and the vouchers are one piece of that.
But we are not saying that the voucher program needs to stop.
But we're saying, and what the Wisconsin Supreme Court said, we need to prove the voucher program in the late 90s, right?
Wisconsin, keep in mind, was the birthplace of school vouchers.
And so we had one of the first state Supreme Court decisions to talk about whether vouchers were OK or not.
And what the Supreme Court said was, there is no problem.
constitutionally with the voucher program so long as the public schools are still being properly funded.
Our fight here is not a fight against the voucher program.
It is a fight that the public schools are not being properly funded.
He's with Law Forward.
They are working with school districts and teachers and parents in this lawsuit against the state over school funding.
Staying on school vouchers for a minute, you guys argue that
The school voucher program is getting preferential treatment, especially when it comes to how the state funds special education programs, because special education was supposed to get a certain amount.
And it turns out they're not.
And part of this suit, like I said, alleges that there is preferential treatment being given to vouchers versus special ed.
Well, again, we're using vouchers to help people understand what's happening.
But you're absolutely correct that a piece of this suit is about how special education is funded.
To start with, federal law requires that school districts meet the needs of students with disabilities.
They have to provide special education programming as needed.
And our state Supreme Court said that too in 2000.
It said that that
that sound basic education that every student is entitled to is not just a sound basic education for an average student.
It's meeting every individual student where they are so that that student has an equal opportunity for a sound basic education.
And that includes special ed.
Well, special ed services can be very expensive.
And right now, the state reimburses public school districts at about 34, 35 cents on the dollar for what they're spending on special education.
The other 65, 66 cents a dollar has to come from somewhere, and it's being pulled from the general education funds.
It's being pulled from the money that's supposed to be used for everybody.
And that's a real problem.
The legislature knows this is a problem, and we know that they know for two reasons.
First, in this past budget, the legislature and the governor did make an effort to raise that 34 or 35 cents up to 42 cents.
They didn't put in enough money, and we're still at 35 cents this year.
Second, and what you're talking about, Brian, is that when private schools take a voucher student who needs special education, the state reimburses that private school at nearly 100 cents on the dollar for every amount of special education services that that student receives in the private school.
Well, I mean, I think they justify it because that student needs those services and they recognize it's important to pay for them.
The question isn't how do they justify paying the private school?
How do you not
That's a great question, and that's part of what the lawsuit is asking.
But we're asking it on the public school side, not attacking the private
I understand.
Well, the private schools get to charge what they want in tuition.
The voucher amount is set in the statutes each year.
But I do want to note that that voucher amount exceeds the amount that the state pays the school
So if lawmakers have this $2.5 billion surplus to work with right now, we've heard this.
We know that the assembly has gaveled out, Senate is still working, but there is a $2.5 billion surplus.
Should that go toward the income tax relief?
Should that be a property tax relief?
Is that some sort of school funding?
Is that a combination?
How do these schools get relief?
Well, those are big and complicated questions.
And the legislature and the governor are negotiating about these things.
What I would note is that our schools really are in a dire spot.
And so the governor, for example, has asked for $200 million in additional funding towards Special Ed to try to get that $0.35 on the dollar up toward $39.42.
which is still way, way short of what school districts need.
And secondly, the governor has asked for $450 million of that surplus to go into general aid for schools.
As I said earlier, we're more than $2 billion short of where we were in 2009 when you adjust for inflation.
So that $450 million, would it help?
Absolutely.
Would it solve the problem and be the end of this?
I don't think so.
LawForward.org is their website.
Jeff, we're talking about what's in the lawsuit, but how does a lawsuit like this come about?
How did Law Forward get involved?
And how did these six districts come together?
Were they approached by you guys?
Did they approach you?
How does something like this come to be?
Well, this really comes together pretty organically.
We recognize and we...
in conversations with people around the state that there's a huge problem.
And we start to think about whether litigation might be a good tool to help fix that problem.
We've been having conversations, law forward's been involved in conversations about this for the last year and a half.
Those conversations have been ongoing for more than a decade before us.
There's a wide range of stakeholders in schools.
Everyone in the state of Wisconsin is a stakeholder in
our local community public schools.
And then we looked around the state and we tried to pick communities and districts that were geographically diverse, that were demographically diverse, and that were politically diverse, because this is not a political case.
This is not an ideological case.
This is a case that everyone in the state of Wisconsin should care about.
And that's why our five communities, I should mention, that are focused in this, that we're focusing on right now in this suit are Adams Friendship, Beloit,
Eau Claire, Green Bay and Nesita.
So all different parts of the state, urban, rural, you know, too often we focus just on what's happening in Milwaukee or just on what's happening in Madison.
And it was really important to us to bring the whole state into this.
Oh, it's really about making sure that students are getting their guaranteed constitutional needs met.
This is not a culture war thing.
This is about making sure that students get what they need and Wisconsin can continue to grow and thrive.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,
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about the
But that being said, I also have my quicktrip reward card not only on my keychain, but in my console box.
I am a quicktrip aficionado.
I used back in the day.
I would enjoy a couple of dunkers and a breakfast burrito.
Numerous times a week, which was a problem.
So I love quicktrip.
And if I were to ask you, folks.
Jamie, I'm not going to ask you, because you know the answer.
Where do you think the country's biggest quick trip is?
You would probably say, well, duh, it's in Wisconsin.
Jamie, we would all be wrong if that was our assumption.
Even though the company, Quick Trip, was founded in Eau Claire in 1965, and it's now headquartered in La Crosse.
Only three of the 10 largest stores for Quicktrip are actually in the state of Wisconsin.
The largest Quicktrip is actually in Byron, Minnesota, coming in at nearly 17,000 square feet.
The second largest is in South Beloit, Illinois.
Now, the biggest location here in the great state of Wisconsin is actually near Kenosha in the village of Summers at just under 15,000 square feet.
Now, in case you're wondering and you want to take a tour of the largest
of all of Wisconsin because I think that sounds like good weekend driving.
It's impressive.
It's nice.
Some of the other large locations are the one in Wisconsin Dells.
Now, this is actually one of my favorite quick trips, honestly.
Really?
It
is because it's newer and it is enormous.
It is absolutely enormous.
14,383 square feet.
There's also one in Roberts of the same size, one in
that's just a little smaller than that by like 50 square feet.
There's one in Belgium and Marathon that come in at just under, just around 13,000 square feet.
Baraboo has a newer one as well, also one of my favorites.
And I would, I might add that when we were building our station in Baraboo,
quick trip meals at like 11 p.m.
because that
was all that
Yeah.
All hours of the day and some of the best soup on earth, by the way.
The Baraboo location comes in at 12,400 square feet.
There is one in Bonduil, which is just over 12,000 square feet.
And then there's two in Janesville that are 12,100 square feet.
So if you want to make your tour around the state and go see some really large Quick Trips, well, there's your list.
It gets you a little everywhere.
The one for the gas prices, there's usually some of the best, if not the best.
And then there's a guy who, when I'm on the road, mainlines coffee.
Quick trip coffee is great.
They have it's almost too much right like this is this is America in a nutshell We have sometimes too many choices.
Yes, and
yes
The other day I was in a quick trip, and by the way, I love getting bananas at Quick Trip.
Now, I know this sounds ridiculous, but Quick Trip bananas are usually, when you go to the grocery store, especially during certain times of the year, they're super, super green, right?
And you're
like, you're like, oh my
gosh, it's gonna take me three weeks before I can eat these bananas if you don't like green bananas.
This is fair.
You go into Quick Trip and you're like, ooh, there's a yellow bunch of bananas that I can now go home and eat.
immediately and I do eat a lot of bananas.
So there is that part.
I was in a quick trip though the other day and saw some cherry dunkers.
Now this was the first time I had personally ever seen the cherry dunkers.
of my,
That is a fact and we're nothing if not fact driven that's right I still though Jamie and I know I'm going to sound like I've never been to Wisconsin before after the tens of thousands of times I've been in a quick trip I still don't understand milk in a bag, but that's me It's gonna be no matter how long I'm here no matter how much of the state I traverse
I'm never going to understand
I actually kind of want somebody to explain it to me because I don't either, because the only thing that comes to my head is this, is this like the real Wisconsin experience without going out and actually milking a cow?
Because
that's the only thing that comes to my head.
So if somebody can explain milk in a bag, please
Milk in a bag.
All right, well, will we come back?
It is, oh, we're repeating this incessantly.
Oh.
Factor fiction, a recurring bit that we like to do this time.
It's a state of the union edition.
Probably wouldn't be too hard for you to guess along if you want to play at home as we do factor fiction next.
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