A former instructor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said during a congressional hearing that mandatory training for new recruits has been drastically reduced including legal boundaries for use of force and the proper way to detain and arrest immigrants.
The whistleblower says DHS is now graduating EVERY cadet… even when they fail practical exams and violate the law during testing..
From the Washington Post:
Ryan Schwank, who resigned from his job at an ICE academy in Georgia last week, told congressional Democrats at a hearing that the agency eliminated 240 hours of “vital classes” from a mandatory 580-hour training program, including instruction about the legal boundaries for the use of force, how to safely handle firearms, and the proper way to detain and arrest immigrants.
Ahead of the hearing, Schwank provided a joint panel of House and Senate Democrats copies of internal ICE documents that he said show the extent of the cuts. The documents indicated that the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers in Glynco, Georgia, shortened its training program from 72 days to 42 days.
Democratic lawmakers said that a side-by-side comparison of a table of contents for the ICE basic training program in July 2025 — before a tranche of new funding from Congress for the agency to hire thousands of officers — and February 2026 appears to show that “a number of courses have been wholly cut from ICE’s training program.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement ICE recruits are receiving the same total hours of training as they always have.
Watch Schwank’s testimony below.
Former ICE Employee: I swore an oath to protect the nation when I signed up. I followed it when I resigned a little over a week ago. I am duty bound to report the legally required training program at the ICE academy is deficient, defective, and broken. I received secretive orders… pic.twitter.com/uKFbV5zDYd
— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) February 23, 2026
🚨BREAKING: An ICE whistleblower says DHS is now graduating EVERY cadet… even when they fail practical exams and violate the law during testing.
According to Ryan Schwank, an attorney who served as an instructor for new ICE recruits, it doesn’t matter how badly a cadet… pic.twitter.com/zwHfyHtxCg
— Jesus Freakin Congress (@TheJFreakinC) February 23, 2026
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