ICE officers receive less training than almost any other federal agents, CNN analysis finds

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers receive far less training than almost any other federal agents given a badge and a gun — even less than officials tasked with investigating exotic animal smuggling and odometer fraud, a CNN analysis found.

ICE officers historically have received less training, but the agency recently cut the number of training days for new recruits in half amid the Trump administration’s steep deportation quotas and aggressive hiring spree.

“They’re not being adequately trained for what they’re being tasked with,” said Marc Brown, who until 2024 worked as an instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), where ICE recruits are trained. “Some of the mistakes you would make in training, now you’re making them in the field.”

CNN reviewed academy training requirements for roughly 30 sworn officer roles at the 20 largest federal law enforcement agencies and found that only US Court probation officers and federal prison guards require fewer training days than ICE deportation officers.

Many federal law enforcement positions require more than double the training days — including Internal Revenue Service criminal investigators, Secret Service police officers and Capitol Police officers.

Even smaller, more obscure federal jobs outside of CNN’s analysis undergo more training than ICE officers, including law enforcement officers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who safeguard the country’s fisheries, and Bureau of Engraving and Printing police, who protect facilities where US currency is produced.

Several agencies did not respond to requests for information, so in these cases, CNN included the most recent, public information on sworn roles and training requirements from government documents.

Training for Smithsonian Institution security officers was harder to determine. A 2018 Office of Inspector General report showed they received less training than ICE officers, but it appears they currently train at FLETC and it is unclear whether they now receive additional instruction. The agency did not respond to CNN.

Tasked with the arrest, detention and removal of undocumented immigrants, ICE deportation officers were previously required to complete 20 weeks, or roughly 100 days, of training before beginning their official duties. Under the Trump administration, ICE dropped this to 42 days.

Special agents at a separate law enforcement division within ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, are charged with conducting criminal investigations into terrorists and national security threats, and they receive much longer training.

But ICE is not hiring nearly as many of these agents during its current surge. The agency’s recent hiring plan includes 10 times more deportation officers than HSI agents.

Customs and Border Protection personnel, who have been helping ICE with interior operations, also attend significantly longer training programs than ICE deportation officers.

ICE told CNN no training content for deportation officers was removed, and said instruction is now 12 hours a day instead of 8 hours. The agency would not say when this change was made, and recent training documents provided to Congress by a whistleblower do not reflect 12-hour days.

But even when the longer hours were factored into CNN’s comparison, ICE deportation officers remained near the very bottom of the list.

The required length of training in active job postings, press releases and media reports has fluctuated, drawing criticism from lawmakers and the public about a lack of transparency.

“They have given various answers, and they don’t add up,” said Deborah Fleischaker, a former ICE chief of staff and Department of Homeland Security official who left the agency last year. “That leaves even more questions about what the length and quality of the training is that new agents are receiving.”

ICE whistleblower Ryan Schwank, who testified to Congressional lawmakers on Monday after quitting his job as an assistant chief counsel earlier this month, said the current level of training doesn’t meet the minimum legal standards and warned that “deficient training can and will get people killed.”

“DHS told the public that new cadets receive all of the training they need to perform their duties, that no critical material or standards have been cut. This is a lie,” he said in his testimony. “ICE made the program shorter, and they removed so many essential parts that what remains is a dangerous husk.”

He said he joined ICE in 2021 and became an instructor at the agency’s training program for the recent “surge” of recruits in September of last year.

Brown, the former FLETC trainer, told CNN that packing crucial instruction and training drills into 12-hour days is problematic. He questioned whether important content has been lost in the “streamlined” version and how much recruits will be able to retain.

Many of these newly hired agents are already out in the field, the DHS recently said, which Brown and other experts warned opens the door for dangerous miscalculations.

Experts interviewed by CNN said that federal law enforcement roles vary widely in complexity and skillsets needed, but they said even the prior level of training for deportation officers was not enough to account for the shift in ICE strategy that has dramatically changed their role.

The Trump administration has placed enormous pressure on deportation officers to ramp up apprehensions of undocumented immigrants — spending millions of dollars on new weapons and ammunition, sending officers on enforcement operations across the country and giving them more latitude to make arrests. Some of these recent crackdowns have drawn widespread protests, such as those in Minneapolis.

The reduction of ICE’s training days was not a factor in two of the most high-profile use-of-force incidents between federal immigration officers and the public. In January, Minneapolis mother Renee Good was killed by a deportation officer who already had years of experience and would have received the longer, previous version of ICE training. Two CBP employees shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti.

ICE officers train at the nation’s largest federal law enforcement training center in Glynco, Georgia, which is used for dozens of law enforcement agencies and even has its own zip code. The grounds feature extensive training facilities, including firearms and explosives ranges, driver training ranges and an entire miniature city made up of storefronts, federal buildings and houses to use for training drills – often utilizing role players to make the scenarios agents would face on the job as realistic as possible.

ICE did not address CNN’s specific analysis showing deportation officers as among the least trained federal agents, but a spokesperson said most new officers hired during the surge have prior law enforcement experience, meaning they successfully completed academy training.

When asked why training days were reduced, ICE said in a statement to CNN that officials have “streamlined training to cut redundancy and incorporate technology advancements, without sacrificing basic subject matter content. Under these new improvements, candidates still learn the same elements and meet the same high standards ICE has always required.”

The agency said it added pre-employment training before recruits reach the academy, claiming that when this is factored in, the overall training is 56 days, as well as 28 days of on-the-job training, saying that officers receive “the same hours of training officers have always received.” CNN’s analysis, however, did not include pre-academy training and orientation or training once in the job for any of the agencies.

The ICE spokesperson told CNN that that new recruits receive academy instruction including defensive tactics, de-escalation techniques and firearms training, saying officers are held to “clear standards” that “require consistent respect for constitutional rights in all enforcement activities.” The spokesperson also said multiple classes are dedicated to use of force.

Rashawn Ray, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he is especially concerned about the length of ICE training at a time when age limits and other requirements to become ICE officers have been lessened – worrying that the quality of applicants is being watered down.

“More agents must be deployed much quicker,” he said, which can lead to cutting corners and possibly hiring people “who otherwise would not be hired during less pressure cooker periods.”

While the current crackdown playing out in communities across the country is unprecedented, concerns about officer training and readiness have been building for years.

In 2018, a DHS Office of Inspector General report warned that a large hiring push under Trump’s first administration had left the DHS training program strained – forecasting that the conditions could “lead to a degradation in training and standards” and that “trainees will be less prepared for their assigned field environment, potentially impeding mission achievability and increasing safety risk to themselves, other law enforcement officers, and anyone within their enforcement authority.”

Schwank, the ICE whistleblower, said this is what has happened under the current administration.

“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,” he told lawmakers.

“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 do not have the training to recognize an unlawful order. That should scare everyone.”