ICE whistleblower documents reveal deep cuts to training program
WASHINGTON— The new filings detail the Trump administration’s significant cuts to training requirements for new immigration officers.
Contrary to an official’s testimony to Congress earlier this month, the cuts include eliminating practical exams, eliminating use-of-force and legal training courses, and generally shortening training time.
Sen. by whistleblowers from the Department of Homeland Security. The documents, provided to Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), were made public Monday afternoon ahead of a forum with Congressional Democrats; It is the third document in recent weeks exploring what members see as abusive and illegal tactics used by federal agents.
Lauren Bis, DHS deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, said no training hours were cut.
“Our officers receive extensive firearms training, are taught de-escalation tactics, and receive extensive 4th and 5th Amendment training,” he said. “Training does not end after graduating from the academy. Hires are subjected to a rigorous on-the-job training program that is tracked and monitored.”
Blumenthal’s office also disclosed the identity of a tipster: Ryan Schwank, an attorney who most recently served as an instructor for new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the ICE Academy inside the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia. Schwank, who resigned on February 13, is scheduled to testify at the forum.
Schwank is one of two tipsters who reported the incident secret statement I approached Blumenthal’s office last month about an ICE policy that allows agents to enter people’s homes without judicial warrant.
In excerpts from Schwank’s prepared statement shared with The Times, he calls the training program “incomplete, flawed and corrupt.”
“Incomplete education can and will cause people to die,” he wrote. “This can and will lead to unlawful arrests, violations of constitutional rights, and a fundamental loss of public trust in law enforcement. ICE is lying to Congress and the American people about the steps it is taking to ensure that its 10,000 new officers will faithfully uphold the Constitution and be able to perform their duties.”
Blumenthal’s office would not confirm whether Schwank or the other still-unnamed whistleblower provided the documents released in a 90-page memorandum released Monday by the minority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The documents show that ICE eliminated more than a dozen practical exams that ICE officers previously required to graduate. In July 2021, a student had to pass 25 practical exams to graduate. Now we need nine.
Eliminated quizzes include “Pistol shooting,” “Criminal encounters” and “Determining removability.”
“All of these are now assessed primarily through open-book, multiple-choice written examinations and without any graded practical examinations,” the declaration says.
The program’s curriculum table of contents and general knowledge sections in July 2025 (before the hiring surge) and comparisons between this month’s general knowledge sections show that ICE appears to have cut entire courses such as use-of-force simulation training, U.S. government structure, criminal and removal proceedings, and use of force.
Earlier this month, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons testified to Congress that the agency had reduced the number of training days from 75 to 42: “We went from five days a week to six days a week. It was five eight-hour days a week. We went to six 12-hour days.”
But the documents appear to contradict Lyons’ statement.
“The schedules reflected in these documents indicate that current ICE personnel have received approximately 250 hours less training than previous groups of members,” the statement said.
The training cuts come as ICE plans to hire more than 4,000 new Enforcement and Expulsion Operations officers this fiscal year, which ends in September. One of the documents notes that as of Jan. 29, ICE had graduated 803 new officers in 2026 and projects 3,204 more graduates by the end of the fiscal year.
In a written statement, Blumenthal encouraged more whistleblowers to come forward.
“We know the Trump Administration’s disdain for training for immigration officers and its covert policy of dismantling your Constitutional rights because of the brave Americans who spoke today,” he wrote. “They come to Congress because we have a responsibility not only to bear witness to these crimes, but to do something to make sure they never happen again.”
