US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has scrapped its accelerated officer training programme and ordered remedial instruction for every agent it hired under the shortened process, after months of warnings that the cuts were producing dangerous and constitutionally unqualified officers.
An internal ICE memo, obtained exclusively by CBS News and reported on 10 June 2026, confirmed that the agency is extending its core training period from 42 days to roughly 71 days and requiring all officers who were onboarded under the shorter scheme to complete a supplemental course called the Advanced Field Officer Training Programme.
The overhaul follows a formal whistleblower complaint delivered to Congress in February, two fatal shootings of US citizens by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, and a series of allegations from former agency staff that recruits were being sent into enforcement operations without the basic legal and firearms training required by law. ICE reduced its standard training timeline from 72 days to 42 days during the mass hiring drive that followed the Trump administration's July 2025 signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill.
From 72 Days to 42: How the Training Programme Was Cut
The original standard for ICE's Basic Immigration Enforcement Training Programme was 72 days. Internal agency documents obtained by CBS News, including a July 2025 syllabus and an updated one dated February 2026, show that training was cut to 42 days over a seven-month period. An analysis by Democratic congressional staff of a model daily schedule from January 2026 found that at least some of ICE's newest recruits were receiving approximately half as many training hours as previous cohorts.
Multiple use-of-force courses were removed in the transition. According to Ryan Schwank, a former ICE attorney and academy instructor who resigned from the agency on 13 February 2026, the cuts included 16 hours of firearms training and classes covering constitutional law. 'What was taken out were classes on how the Constitution works,' Schwank told the congressional forum. 'ICE made the programme shorter, and they removed so many essential parts that what remains is a dangerous husk.'
The shortened programme was adopted during the tenure of then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as ICE launched a drive to hire 10,000 new deportation officers. That recruitment blitz was made possible by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, which allocated approximately £59 billion ($75 billion) specifically to ICE, funding hiring, retention, training, fleet modernisation and deportation operations.
Schwank's Congressional Testimony
On 23 February 2026, Schwank testified at a public forum organised by Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Representative Robert Garcia of California, making the first public, named accusation by a serving ICE official that the agency's training had been deliberately misrepresented to Congress and the public. He resigned before testifying and was represented by the legal group Whistleblower Aid.
'I am here because I am duty-bound to report the legally required training programme at the ICE academy is deficient, defective and broken,' Schwank told the forum. 'DHS told the public the new cadets receive all the training they need to perform their duties, that no critical material or standards have been cut. This is a lie.' He added: '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 recognise an unlawful order.'
Schwank also alleged he had been ordered to teach recruits to enter homes without a judicial warrant, describing it as 'a blatantly unlawful order.' Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons had earlier told Congress that the training timeline had been shortened during the hiring surge, but maintained that standards were preserved. Schwank testified that the claim was false.
The forum on 23 February was the third such hearing held by Blumenthal and Garcia to examine ICE officer conduct since Trump's second term began. CBS News had separately obtained the internal syllabi as part of a disclosure that Schwank and a second whistleblower shared with Congress, providing documentary corroboration of what the agency had previously disputed.
The Minneapolis Shootings That Brought the Issue to a Head
The training controversy became politically untenable after two US citizens were killed by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis within the space of three weeks. Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot by ICE officer Jonathan Ross on 7 January 2026 during Operation Metro Surge, the largest immigration enforcement operation in US history to that point. Trump administration officials alleged she had attempted to run over an officer with her vehicle; her family disputed the account.
On 24 January 2026, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse for the Veterans Affairs Department, was shot multiple times and killed by US Customs and Border Protection officers. Pretti had been filming the agents with his phone and intervening to assist a woman who had been pushed to the ground.
The House Oversight Committee produced a formal report into both deaths. In March, the state of Minnesota, Hennepin County and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension filed suit against the Department of Justice and DHS, alleging that federal authorities were withholding investigative evidence to shield the officers involved.
Both killings prompted bipartisan criticism and led the Trump administration to scale back Operation Metro Surge. Senator Ed Markey said in a formal Senate statement that he would oppose any additional ICE funding, and congressional Democrats blocked regular DHS appropriations for several months until Republicans passed a separate £55 billion ($70 billion) immigration funding measure via reconciliation. Trump signed that bill on 10 June 2026, the same day CBS News published its exclusive report on the training overhaul.
ICE and DHS Respond: New Training Takes Effect in July
In its statement to CBS News, the Department of Homeland Security framed the training changes as a response to officer safety rather than a concession over constitutional deficiencies. 'As our officers continue to face coordinated campaigns of violence against them, including riots outside ICE facilities, sniper attacks, and more than a 1,300 per cent increase in assaults against them, ICE is instituting additional training, including crowd control measures, additional training for high-risk vehicle stops, a live-fire cover course for officer safety, and medical training,' DHS said.
The department added that the new training would be 'tracked online and monitored closely.' The agency did not address the specific constitutional training classes removed during the 2025 hiring surge or respond to Schwank's allegation that recruits had been instructed to enter homes without judicial warrants. DHS also did not name the courses that make up the new Advanced Field Officer Training Programme or specify its length.
The extended 71-day training period for new intake classes will begin in July at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centre (FLETC) in Georgia. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin gave Congress a preview of the changes during testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee on 2 June 2026. 'The training policy is going to change a little bit, because we're going to be doing crowd control and fit today's needs,' Mullin told lawmakers. 'But all training always is willing to change, back and forth.'
An agency that sent thousands of officers into the field under a programme it has now quietly abandoned has yet to explain, publicly or to Congress, what those officers were and were not taught before they were given a badge and a gun.
