Ryan Schwank Says Training Cuts Create Acute Legal and Operational Risk as ICE Expands Recruits

The timing matters: ryan schwank, a former ICE instructor-turned-attorney who resigned this month, told a congressional forum that sharply shortened training and eliminated evaluations are creating immediate uncertainty about whether new officers can lawfully perform immigration enforcement. His warning places legal exposure and operational gaps ahead of the outreach and hiring surge the agency is pursuing.

Why the changes are framed as a risk to lawful conduct and public safety

Schwank framed the issue as more than an administrative tweak: he said recruits are graduating without a reliable grasp of tactics or the law required to perform their jobs, and that widespread concern exists among training staff about cadet readiness even in the final days of the Academy. Here’s the part that matters: he warned that without reform, the agency will graduate thousands of officers who do not understand constitutional duties, the limits of authority or how to recognize an unlawful order.

What's easy to miss is that this is not presented as a theoretical gap but as an operational posture tied to a documented contraction of the formal curriculum. That combination raises both legal and enforcement uncertainty for officers and communities interacting with them.

Ryan Schwank’s testimony and the congressional setting

Schwank delivered his testimony on a Monday hearing organized by congressional Democrats, specifically Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Robert Garcia of California. He described the ICE Basic Immigration Enforcement Training Program as deficient, defective and broken, and alleged that agency officials are misrepresenting the amount of training recruits receive.

Schwank is an attorney and former career ICE employee who resigned from the agency on Feb. 13; a spokesperson for a legal group representing him said he quit in protest. He resigned less than two weeks before the hearing. A second U. S. government whistleblower joined him in disclosures to Congress.

Documented curriculum shifts and what changed in hard numbers

Internal agency documents that were part of a disclosure he and a second whistleblower shared with Congress show the formal syllabus moved significantly in a seven-month span. A July 2025 syllabus and a February 2026 updated syllabus reflect a drop in the total training window from 72 days to 42 days, and several courses tied to use-of-force practice appear to have been removed.

Also included was a model daily schedule from January 2026 showing that at least some recruits are receiving roughly half the training hours of previous cohorts, based on analysis by Democratic staff with the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation. A list of required exams from October 2025 indicates cadets are being graded on a smaller fraction of earlier topics; eliminated evaluations appear to touch on use-of-force protocols labeled in the documents as "Encounters to Detention" and "Judgment Pistol Shooting. "

The Department of Homeland Security denied that training requirements were eliminated, stating that training was streamlined to cut redundancy and incorporate technology advancements without sacrificing basic subject matter content.

Political and oversight consequences in play

Schwank’s testimony arrives amid rising calls for accountability after several incidents in which federal immigration officers used deadly force, including the January killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis. The testimony is positioned to intensify Democratic resistance to funding the Department of Homeland Security until the administration agrees to a set of reforms for ICE, one of which would prohibit agents from wearing masks during operations.

Mini timeline of the documented changes and key dates

• July 2025: Syllabus in place that shows a longer training window (72 days).
• October 2025: List of required exams shows a narrower set of graded topics compared with four years earlier; some evaluations tied to use-of-force appear removed.
• January 2026: Model daily schedule indicates some new recruits receive roughly half the training hours of earlier cohorts.
• February 2026: Updated syllabus shows total training reduced to 42 days within a seven-month span.
• Feb. 13, 2026: Schwank resigned from the agency; the hearing testimony occurred the following Monday. The article containing these disclosures was updated on Feb. 23, 2026, 4: 18 PM ET.

Short Q& A for readers parsing the immediate facts

Q: Did the formal training period shrink?
A: Yes; documents tied to the congressional disclosure show total training dropped from 72 days to 42 days over seven months.

Q: Were use-of-force evaluations removed?
A: The October 2025 exams list and subsequent syllabi indicate eliminated evaluations that touch on "Encounters to Detention" and "Judgment Pistol Shooting. "

Q: Will these changes be reversed immediately?
A: Unclear in the provided context; the Department of Homeland Security says requirements were not eliminated and that training was streamlined.

The real question now is whether congressional pressure and oversight will prompt changes in curriculum or funding conditions tied to the agency’s training approach. The testimony and documents align to create a policy flashpoint: staffing expansion paired with materially shorter training raises enforcement and legal risk that legislators are already responding to.

Writer's aside: The bigger signal here is how quickly procedural changes in training—measured in days and specific exam removals—translate into political leverage and oversight demands.