Training for New ICE Agents Is ‘Deficient’ and ‘Broken,’ Whistle-Blower Says
"The former official appeared with congressional Democrats, who also released documents indicating significant reductions in instructional hours for recruits.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official who resigned this month from his job instructing new recruits came forward on Monday as a whistle-blower, describing what he said was a “deficient, defective and broken” training program with a pared-back curriculum as the Trump administration races to expand the agency.
The account by Ryan Schwank, a former ICE lawyer who worked at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy, coincided with the release by Senate Democrats of several dozen pages of internal ICE records that suggest the Trump administration has curtailed the agency’s basic training.
“For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program,” Mr. Schwank said at a forum held in Washington by congressional Democrats. “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.”
He added: “New cadets are graduating from the academy despite widespread concerns among training staff that even in the final days of training, the cadets cannot demonstrate a solid grasp of the tactics or the law required to perform their jobs.”
Some of the previously unreported documents released on Monday indicate that ICE officers are now training for significantly fewer hours than they did before President Trump’s hiring surge. Others suggest that several training classes appear to have been cut from the required syllabus, including one titled “Use of Force Simulation Training” and others on immigration law and ICE’s legal authorities.
Together, the new disclosures underscore concerns about the conduct and preparedness of Homeland Security Department agents, who have shot and killed at least three American citizens over the last year. Mr. Trump’s decision to order immigration officers into major American cities has led to a rise in violent encounters with members of the public, leading to fears that poor training for new agents will produce more chaos.
Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement that training hours had not been reduced, adding, “Our officers receive extensive firearm training, are taught de-escalation tactics, and receive Fourth and Fifth Amendment comprehensive instruction.”
Mr. Schwank was hired as an ICE lawyer in 2021 and became an instructor last year at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy in Georgia, where he taught courses on the law. He resigned on Feb. 13 after he and another publicly unidentified person submitted a confidential whistle-blower complaint on a separate matter that has raised constitutional questions: a new ICE policy allowing deportation officers to enter homes and arrest people without a judicial warrant.
“ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution,” he said on Monday at the event with congressional Democrats.
His account comes at a time when funding for the Homeland Security Department has lapsed as Democrats push for a range of new restrictions on immigration agents.
After a planned infusion of $75 billion over four years from Mr. Trump’s signature domestic policy bill, ICE has embarked on a massive hiring spree. So far, the agency said it has hired over 12,000 new officers and agents, more than double the existing number. Between October and late January, more than 800 ICE recruits graduated from the academy, according to the documents, which were released by Democrats on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Another 3,204 recruits are projected to graduate by the end of September.
But the surge of recruits threatened to overwhelm the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, which trains most federal agents. In response, ICE officials scaled back the agency’s training regimen, a shift reflected in the newly disclosed documents.
The disclosures include syllabuses containing required courses and daily schedules for ICE basic training. A July 2025 syllabus shows recruits at that time received 584 hours of training over 72 days. A syllabus from this month, however, shows training reduced to eight hours per day over 42 days, which amounts to approximately 336 hours. That would be a roughly 40 percent decrease in training hours.
Todd Lyons, ICE’s acting director, told Congress this month that ICE recruits were now training for “six days a week, 12 hours a day.” He also said agents were receiving new training both before they reported to the training academy and once they showed up for their jobs.
“The meat of the training was never removed,” Mr. Lyons added after being pressed about whether ICE was lowering its standards.
In a fact sheet, the Homeland Security Department said that it had received an additional $750 million in funding for the training academy and that it had “streamlined training to cut redundancy and incorporate technology advancements, without sacrificing basic subject matter content.” The department also noted that many new ICE recruits are “experienced law enforcement officers who have already successfully completed a law enforcement academy.”
Administration officials had previously said the reduction in training time came largely from the elimination of Spanish-language classes. However, the documents show that a number of other classes listed as being required last year no longer appear in the February syllabus. They include courses on handling the property of detainees, filling out paperwork that alleges someone is in the United States without authorization, taking a “victim-centered approach” and “integrity awareness training.”
In addition, other documents show that ICE recruits must now complete only nine practical examinations to graduate from the training academy, compared with 25 exams that were listed in a training syllabus dated July 2021 that was also released by the Democrats.
Among the exams that are no longer listed as being required in an October 2025 syllabus are “Judgment Pistol Shooting” and “Determine Removability,” a reference to how agents decide if people they encounter have legal status in the United States. It was not clear from the documents when those exams were removed.
“Deficient training can and will get people killed,” Mr. Schwank said on Monday. “It can and will lead to unlawful arrests, violations of constitutional rights and fundamental loss of public trust in law enforcement.”
In a statement, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, encouraged other whistle-blowers to speak out.
“To anyone else who is repulsed by what you’re seeing or what authorities are asking you to do, please know that you can make a real difference by coming forward,” Mr. Blumenthal said.
Emily Powell and Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Nicholas Nehamas is a Washington correspondent for The Times, focusing on the Trump administration and its efforts to transform the federal government.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times."
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