Former ICE lawyer says training is ‘deficient, defective and broken’ as he blows whistle on failures under Trump
New Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are being given a “deficient, defective and broken” set of training courses as the Trump administration rushes to expand the agency, according to a former ICE official.
“Without reform, ICE will graduate thousands of new officers who do not know their constitutional duty, do not know the limits of their authority and who do not have the training to recognize an unlawful order,” Ryan Schwank a former ICE lawyer and training instructor, said Monday during a hearing organized by congressional Democrats. “That should scare everyone.”
“Deficient training can and will get people killed,” he added. “It can and will lead to unlawful arrests, violations of constitutional rights and fundamental loss of public trust in law enforcement.”
As part of the Trump administration’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill domestic spending package that passed last year, the Department of Homeland Security was awarded an unprecedented $165 billion, in part to hire 10,000 new ICE agents, and the administration has offered large cash bonuses and other perks to rapidly recruit new hires.
There have been a string of anonymous internal complaints about new recruits who allegedly have poor physical fitness and scant training before deployment, but Schwank’s claims represent some of the most serious, public complaints against the agency from a former official.
The lawyer, who joined ICE in 2021 and resigned earlier this month, claimed the agency has cut about 240 hours of instruction from its previously 548-hour training program.
Classes on firearms training, safe weapons handling, constitutional law, and the rights of protesters were among the lessons cut, Schwank said.
Incoming agents are also required to complete only nine practical examinations to graduate from their training, down from 25 exams listed on a 2021 syllabus, according to documents released by congressional Democrats.
Previous exams on pistol shooting and how to determine if someone is legally removable from the U.S. were not on an October 2025 syllabus.
Schwank’s allegations come as DHS is under heavy scrutiny.
Democrats have stopped funding for the agency as part of a push to impose new restrictions on immigration enforcement, after military-style deportation campaigns in cities across the country, including in Minneapolis, where agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
The Department of Homeland Security has pushed back strongly against the former official’s claims.
“New ICE recruits receive 56 days of training and an average of 28 days of on-the-job training,” the agency said in a statement to The Independent. “No training requirements have been removed. Training increased from five days a week, eight hours a day to six days a week, twelve hours per day. It is the same hours of training officers have always received.”
DHS has streamlined portions of its training program to “cut redundancy” and incorporate new technologies without “sacrificing basic subject matter content,” according to the administration. Agents continue to be trained on civil rights and the U.S. Constitution as an “integral component” of their instruction.
