laundry comes out of washer with specks of dirt and debris on them

It's unusual for a washing machine not to have a pump filter these days, but they are normally easily visible at the bottom left (or occasionally right) of the washing machine. Right where your foot would be if you stood really close to the front. Sometimes they may be behind the kick strip. It will tell you in the instruction manual if you have one. If not, you should be able to download a manual from this page Washing machine instruction manuals

However, after saying all that, the function of the pump filter is only to prevent obstructions from getting inside the water pump. If your laundry is coming out not properly cleaned, and with bits on them then something else is not quite right.

It is possible that some pump filters could end up being clogged up enough to prevent efficient rinsing of the laundry, and that could affect the quality of the wash. But this would be unusual, because if a washing machine's pump filter is blocked up enough to cause issues with the wash cycle, it is also likely to trigger an error code, or exhibit some other malfunction.

I have an article dedicated to looking at all the possible causes of our washing machine not cleaning laundry properly