Ex-ICE instructor testifies that agency slashed officer training, lied to Congress

A former instructor for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday accused the agency of dramatically slashing training standards for new officers and lying to Congress about it as the Trump administration seeks to rapidly expand its mass deportation operation.

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.

“Law enforcement is a deadly serious business. It is not a place for shortcuts,” Schwank said. “Deficient training can and will get people killed. … ICE is lying to Congress and the American people about the steps it is taking to ensure that 12,000 officers can faithfully uphold the Constitution and perform their jobs.”

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, which oversees ICE, “has knowingly jeopardized the safety of Americans by systematically dismantling the training designed to educate ICE officers on the legal limits of their authority,” Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) said.

Schwank’s testimony comes two weeks after acting ICE director Todd M. Lyons testified in front of separate House and Senate committees amid growing public outrage over the aggressive tactics of ICE and other federal immigration officers. Two U.S. citizens were fatally shot by federal officers in Minneapolis last month.

During his testimony in the House on Feb. 10, Lyons responded to questions about the agency’s training program by saying it has not reduced the “meat of the training” but has sought to reduce the time it takes to get officers into the field. He said training used to take place five days a week for eight hours a day but has been changed to six days a week for 12 hours per day.

In a statement Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said ICE recruits receive 56 days of training before beginning their assignments, along with an average of 28 additional days of “on-the-job-training.” DHS said recruits are receiving the same total hours of training as they always have.

“No training hours have been cut. Our officers receive extensive firearm training, are taught de-escalation tactics, and receive Fourth and Fifth Amendment comprehensive instruction,” said Lauren Bis, a spokeswoman for the department.

Schwank said that among the classes eliminated were 16 hours of firearms training. He also said that a two-hour class on the rights of protesters was shortened into 10 minutes of discussion during a lecture on “the concept of seizure.”

Schwank began working at ICE in 2021 as an assistant chief counsel and, in September, volunteered to serve as an instructor at the training academy in Georgia. He said recruits came from a variety of backgrounds, including some as young as 18 years old and some who did not have college degrees.

On his first day on the job, he said, he was asked to review an internal memo, signed by Lyons, that said ICE officers are authorized to use administrative warrants, approved by senior ICE officials, to enter private residences.

That marked a shift from the federal government’s long-standing position that officers must obtain judicial warrants signed by federal judges. Schwank said he was instructed to train the recruits on the policy but was told he could not talk about the information publicly or even take notes after reading the memo. The Washington Post and other news outlets reported on the memo last month.

“ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution and attempting to cloak it in secrecy by demanding I lie about it,” he said.

In the statement, DHS said officers receive “comprehensive” instruction on the Fourth Amendment, which provides constitutional safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“The overarching objective is to ensure that, before assuming field duties, every ICE officer has been repeatedly trained, tested, and held to clear standards that require consistent respect for constitutional rights in all enforcement activities,” the agency said.

The lawmakers also heard from Teyana Gibson Brown, a Minneapolis resident whose husband was detained by heavily armed ICE officers last month after they entered her home without permission and showed her an administrative warrant purportedly authorizing the arrest.

Several of the lawmakers repeated calls for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem to resign or be impeached.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) called what happened to Gibson Brown “wrong” and “outrageous” and said that “every person should be ashamed of our own government for causing this kind of terror.”