A former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement instructor responsible for educating new ICE officers on proper use of force told Congress Monday the agency's efforts to rapidly scale up its ranks will place recruits on the streets without the training they need to lawfully carry out immigration enforcement.
"New cadets are graduating from the Academy, despite widespread concerns among training staff that even in the final days of training, the cadets cannot demonstrate a solid grasp of the tactics or the law required to perform their jobs," Ryan Schwank said yesterday.
"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. That should scare everyone," he warned
Schwank, an attorney and former career ICE employee who resigned less than two weeks ago, quit the agency in protest. It stands as one of the first instances of an ICE official publicly rebuking the agency and the adequacy of its training.
Former ICE agent: My first day training new cadets, I received secretive orders to teach them to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a warrant. I watched ICE cut classes that teach our legal system, firearms training, use of force, lawful arrests, and the limits of officers' authority
— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) 2026-02-23T21:53:57.077196463Z
Yes, ICE is doing a terrible job of training new agents, but that's not the main problem. When your top leadership labels law-abiding residents as violent criminals and claims that protesters and observers are "terrorists," that's not a training problem – that's a mission problem. Abolish ICE.
— Mark Jacob (@markjacob.bsky.social) 2026-02-23T20:02:47.465Z
New details from his testimony on minimal training for ICE recruits:
❌ says nearly 16 hours of classes on firearms training intended “to teach them how to use their weapons correctly and safely” were eliminated
❌ 2-hour course about the rights of protesters was reduced to 10 mins
— Julianne McShane (@juliannemcshane.bsky.social) 2026-02-23T22:01:27.151Z
