How many contact hours in de‑escalation and firearms training did ICE require before 2025 compared to 2026?

1. What the record actually documents about de‑escalation hours before 2025

The most concrete public number tied to de‑escalation training is the 16‑hour training noted in a Government Accountability Office review, which states that a 16‑hour course covering assessment and tactics — including elements of de‑escalation — was added to an agency training curriculum as of March 27, 2023 ^[1]. Multiple investigative outlets, however, have reported gaps between agency policy and training materials, finding little or no dedicated de‑escalation curriculum in the ICE materials they obtained, which underscores that the 16‑hour figure may not reflect comprehensive, agency‑wide contact hours for de‑escalation instruction across all ICE cadres ^{[3] [4]}.

2. What the sources say about firearms training hours before 2025

Firearms instruction is a consistent and well‑documented component of basic law‑enforcement training at FLETC and in ICE curricula — covering handgun and rifle use, shooting positions, live‑fire exercises and legal considerations — but none of the reviewed reporting or public handbooks in the provided material specify a standardized number of contact hours for firearms training that applies agency‑wide prior to 2025 ^{[3] [4] [5] [6]}. Public descriptions emphasize content and intensity (including indoor ranges and tactical scenarios) without enumerating hours ^[6].

3. How 2026 reporting and official statements frame any change in hours

A Department of Homeland Security release in January 2026 touted enhanced training and FLETC capacity to train thousands of ICE officers and said DHS streamlined training “without sacrificing basic subject matter content,” but it did not publish a new, specific contact‑hour breakdown for de‑escalation or firearms training in the cited material ^[2]. News outlets in 2026 reported disputes over training length (e.g., debates about total academy days), but those discussions focus on total academy duration and sequencing rather than publishing a new contact‑hour tally for individual subjects like de‑escalation or firearms ^{[7] [8]}.

4. Conflicting narratives and what each side emphasizes

Investigative reporting by Business Insider and Type Investigations argues that ICE materials “say little about de‑escalation” and found no lessons teaching de‑escalation strategies in the documents they obtained, implying the practical contact hours devoted to de‑escalation are minimal or absent in those materials ^{[3] [4]}. By contrast, DHS and some local reporting stress that recruits attend FLETC for training that includes de‑escalation and firearms, framing the issue as one of scale and delivery rather than absence — but those sources stop short of publishing quantified, comparable hour counts for 2026 versus earlier periods ^{[2] [6]}.

5. Limits of the available reporting and the honest conclusion

Based on the supplied documents, the only explicit contact‑hour figure for de‑escalation comes from the GAO excerpt identifying a 16‑hour course added in 2023; no source in the provided set gives a definitive pre‑2025 versus 2026 contact‑hour comparison for firearms or a comprehensive, standardized tally for de‑escalation across ICE ^{[1] [3] [2]}. Therefore, while claims of enhanced or streamlined training appear in official statements for 2026, the sources reviewed do not supply a verifiable change in documented contact hours for de‑escalation or firearms training between the two periods ^{[2] [8]}.