U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was rocked Monday as a former agency lawyer blasted the Trump administration for gutting critical training programs while rushing to hire thousands of new officers.
Ryan Schwank, who recently trained cadets at the ICEacademy in Georgia, accused the agency of slashing 240 hours from its 584-hour training program, The Hill reported. During his testimony, Schwank described the cuts as rendering the curriculum “deficient, defective and broken.”
Legal instruction on use of force was among the casualties, he claimed.
“They ceased all of the legal instructions regarding use of force. This means that cadets are not taught what it means to be objectively reasonable, the very standard which the law requires them to meet when deciding whether or not to use deadly force. Our jobs as instructors are to teach them so well that they can make split-second decisions about what they can and cannot do in life or death situations,” Schwank testified at a Democratic congressional forum.
Department of Homeland Security officers have been involved in multiple deadly shootings recently, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. The hiring surge follows the $170 billion Big Beautiful Bill mandate to staff up ICE for Trump’s promised mass deportation operation.
Schwank also exposed what he called constitutional violations in training materials.
“On my first day at the Academy, I was instructed to read and return a memo in my supervisor’s presence, which claimed ICE officers could enter homes without a judicial warrant. The Acting ICE Director authorized the very conduct the DHS in its own 2025 legal training materials had called the ‘chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed’ – that is physical entry of the hall without consent or proper warrant,” Schwank said.
DHS fired back, insisting no training hours have been cut.
“Despite false claims from the media and sanctuary politicians, 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,” DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis told the outlet in a statement
ICE Director Todd Lyons suggested the timeline merely shifted from five eight-hour days to six 12-hour days.
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