Was ICE training shortened to 47 days to honor Trump? What we know

On Jan. 7, 2026, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Minneapolis woman Renee Good. As ICE faced increased public scrutiny, an August 2025 report by The Atlantic resurfaced that claimed the agency had reduced its required training for new agents to 47 days — reportedly to honor the 47th president, Donald Trump. 

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., brought widespread attention to the claim during a conversation with CNN's Jake Tapper on Jan. 11, saying:

Remember we're beefing up ICE 10,000 more agents. They are not getting the traditional five months training.

Literally, Jake, the training for the ICE agents now is 47 days. Why 47 days? Because Donald Trump is the 47th president.

Several news media outlets attempted to detangle the details with mixed findings, including People, Al Jazeera, the Washington Examiner and the Poynter Institute. Below, we break down what's known:

Where did the claim originate?

The claim that ICE shortened federal law-enforcement training for its new deportation officers to 47 days in honor of Trump — the 47th president — originated from a story (archived) published in The Atlantic on Aug. 26, 2025. Reporter Nick Miroff wrote that three anonymous officials said academy training was now shorter, and that the number of days was meant to honor Trump. The story read:

New deportation officers at ICE used to receive about five months of federal-law-enforcement training. Administration officials have cut that time roughly in half, partly by eliminating Spanish-language courses. Academy training was shortened to 47 days, three officials told me, the number picked because Trump is the 47th president. DHS officials said the training will run six days a week for eight weeks.

It's unclear whether all three officials separately or explicitly told Miroff that the number was intended to honor Trump, or just one or two of them. We wrote to Miroff seeking clarification. He responded that he stands by his reporting and math without addressing our question about how many of his sources made the claim.

ICE, DHS response to the claim

The day after The Atlantic story came out, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, denied the claim to the Washington Examiner and stated that "training to become an Enforcement and Removal Operations officer is 8 weeks long." 

We wrote to both DHS and ICE seeking to confirm this reporting, and a spokesperson for the DHS who said the statement was attributable to a senior DHS official but did not provide a name responded with the same denial: "False. Training to become an Enforcement and Removal Operations officer is 8 weeks long." We followed up, seeking clarification that "false" was in response to the claim that training was shortened to 47 days specifically in honor of Trump, and did not immediately receive a response.

We also sought clarification regarding how many days within the eight weeks were training days. Eight weeks is 56 days, and if trainees receive one day off per week, that adds up to 48 days. We will update this story if we receive responses.

Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, said in August 2025 that training had recently been reduced to six days per week over eight weeks, the Washington Examiner reported.

ICE announced a significant staffing increase (archived) on Jan. 3, which the DHS reiterated in its Jan. 14 email to Snopes, confirming that training had been "streamlined":

FLETC [Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers] is prepared to accommodate 11,000 new hires by the beginning of next year. ICE continuously evaluates and modernizes its training programs and curriculum. We have streamlined training to cut redundancy and incorporate technology advancements.

The senior DHS official told Snopes that "no subject matter has been cut," and "language classes, which previously covered only a specific dialect of Spanish, have been replaced with robust translation and interpretation services that apply to multiple languages."

Official ICE orientation materials (archived) did not, as of this writing, reflect this "streamlined" training. 

One former DHS official "with knowledge of the agency's hiring" also reportedly told NBC News that ICE shortened the training at the federal training center in Georgia from 13 weeks to eight, then later shortened it to six weeks. We have not independently verified this account.