WASHINGTON – New whistleblower documents detail major cuts by the Trump administration to training requirements for new immigrant workers.
Among the reductions are the elimination of practical tests, use of force and law enforcement training, and a complete reduction in training time, which contradicts the official testimony we sent to Congress earlier this month.
These documents, given by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is a whistleblower from the Department of Homeland Security, it was revealed publicly ahead of Monday’s meeting with Congressional Democrats – the third in recent weeks examining what members consider to be abusive and illegal tactics used by federal agents.
Lauren Bis, deputy secretary of public affairs at Homeland Security, said no training hours have been set.
“Our officers receive extensive firearms training, are taught fire suppression tactics, and receive extensive 4th and 5th Amendment instruction,” he said. “Training doesn’t stop after graduation, recruits are put through a rigorous on-the-job training program that is monitored and monitored closely.”
Earlier this month, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons testified to Congress that while the agency reduced the number of training days to 42 from 75, “We went from five days a week to six days a week.
But the documents seem to contradict Lyons’ testimony.
“The schedules shown in these documents show that current ICE recruits receive nearly 250 more hours of training than previous cohorts,” according to a 90-page memorandum from several staff members of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Blumenthal is the top Democrat on that committee.
Blumenthal’s office also revealed the identity of another whistleblower: Ryan Schwank, an attorney who recently served as an instructor for new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at the ICE Academy inside the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.
Schwank, who left his position on Feb. 13, is one of two subpoenas to Blumenthal’s office last month about an ICE policy that allows agents to forcibly enter people’s homes without a warrant.
In his testimony Monday, Schwank said that over the past five months he has watched ICE leadership dismantle its training program. What remains, he said, is “a dangerous husk.”
Schwank said claims by Homeland Security leaders that instructors receive the same training in a shorter amount of time are “false.”
“This means that cadets are not taught what it means to have common sense, which is the standard that the law requires them to meet when deciding whether or not to use lethal force,” he said. “Our job as instructors is to educate them properly so that they can make informed decisions about what they can and cannot do in life or death situations. However, in the name of firing a large number of police officers, DHS leadership has dismantled the academic and practical tests that we need to know if cadets can do their job safely and legally.”
Schwank said he was shown a secret memo authorizing a home invasion on his first day as a training instructor. He was told to teach its content but not to write notes on it or discuss its existence.
He says: “In my work, I have never received an illegal order that is so obvious, and no one has been given in such a disturbing way. “The surprising thing is that this memo was shown to me privately by my boss, who made sure that I understood that disobeying would cost me my job.”
“So, basically, you’ve been told, as a law enforcement officer, that you have to train ICE agents on how to break the law,” Blumenthal told Schwank.
Schwank told Blumenthal that the reason he got the training position was because the attorney before him was forced to resign because of their refusal to teach the contents of the memo.
Another witness at the hearing was Teyana Gibson Brown, whose husband, Garrison Gibson, was arrested in Minneapolis last month after agents barged in with guns drawn. She said she and her husband repeatedly asked to see the warrant but were ignored.
“I heard the doorbell ring and realized that we were no longer safe,” he said. “Ten police officers, all armed, were standing in front of me and my family. Words cannot describe the horror we felt at this moment.”
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) said the idea that “ICE wants to write its own warrant, without a judge, to break down your door and violate your rights” should scare all Americans. Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, led the panel with Blumenthal.
Blumenthal’s office did not confirm whether Schwank or the other whistleblower, who is still unidentified, provided the documents released Monday and included in the 90-page memo.
Documents show that ICE has removed more than a dozen practical exams that ICE officers were previously required to complete. By July 2021, a cadet needed to pass 25 performance tests to graduate. Now, nine are needed.
Tests that have been removed include “Judicial Shotgun Shooting,” “Criminal Encounter,” and “Get Out.”
“All of these are now being evaluated, if at all, mostly through open-book, multi-method exams and without any standardized tests,” the memo said.
During the hearing, Blumenthal held up a poster showing two lists of test subjects. The long list, Schwank told him, was an important lesson in things like “how to use their guns safely, how to deal with someone they intended to arrest, like Mrs. Gibson Brown’s husband.”
Exams that were closed books became open books, he said. As a result, he watched the cadets graduate despite spending a lot of energy on practical training.
A comparison between the table of contents of the program and the sections of general knowledge from July 2025 – before the increase in recruitment – and this month shows that ICE seems to have cut the entire course, such as using forced simulation training, the structure of the US government, criminal proceedings against removal, and the use of force.
In a statement, Homeland Security said no training requirements have been removed and that recruits receive 56 days of training and an average of 28 days of on-the-job training. The agency said training was streamlined to reduce redundancy and incorporate technological advances without reducing subject matter content.
Candidates still learn the same things that are always required, the organization said, including multiple classes on force policy, as well as safe methods of restraint and de-escalation.
The training cuts come as ICE plans to bring in more than 4,000 new Enforcement and Removal Operations officers this fiscal year, which ends in September. One of the documents notes that ICE has graduated 803 new officers by 2026 as of Jan. 29 and revealed that another 3,204 students graduated by the end of the fiscal year.
In their statement, Homeland Security said that the agency is willing to train 12,000 new people this year, and that most of the new recruits are seasoned police officers who have already attended the police academy.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) asked Schwank about the new officers being hired by ICE.
“Are they police officers who already have this training, so they don’t have to worry about it?” he asked. “Are they people who don’t have a legal background?”
Schwank said the students he met really wanted to learn and do their job properly, but they didn’t come with a background in law.
“I’ve had 18-year-old cadets,” he said. “I had a student who was celebrating his 19th birthday in his classes. We have students who don’t have a college degree. We have students whose first language is not English.”
