How many hours of firearms training do new ICE agents receive in 2025?
Executive summary
Available official and reporting sources confirm that new ICE agents receive formal firearms instruction as part of their basic training at FLETC and through ICE’s Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs, with additional on‑the‑job and specialized courses for units like SRTs [1][2][3]. None of the provided sources, however, specify a concrete total number of hours of firearms training for new ICE agents in 2025, so an exact hours figure cannot be established from the documents and reporting at hand [4][5][6].
1. What the agency and reporting explicitly say about firearms training
The Department of Homeland Security and ICE materials state that all new ICE basic students attend FLETC where they are trained in subjects that include firearms, and ICE emphasizes ongoing firearms qualifications and online tracking of training after graduation [1]. ICE’s Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs describes itself as the unit that provides specialized firearms and tactical training and policy guidance for the agency, indicating an institutional framework and continuing education in weapons handling [2]. Reporting from PBS describes recruits practicing on a large indoor firing range during the intensive academy schedule and notes that firearms are a named component of the curriculum alongside legal and tactical instruction [7]. The HSI Academy overview likewise reports that its core basic programs combine classroom lectures and practical exercises that include firearms training as part of a roughly 12‑week CITP curriculum [3].
2. What official documents and investigators do not disclose — the critical data gap
The ICE Firearms and Use of Force Handbook and other agency directives are treated as protected or not fully public in the reporting reviewed, and investigators and journalists highlight that specific training curricula and use‑of‑force policies are often withheld from the public record [4][5]. Fact‑checking outlets and reporting note uncertainty about total training durations and reductions in overall academy time, but they do not enumerate a specific number of firearms hours for 2025 recruits [6]. ICE’s own academy handbook and FLETC materials referenced here state firearms is a required portion of training but do not publish a consolidated hours‑per‑recruit figure in the publicly available excerpts [8][1].
3. Reasonable inferences and why they are limited
Because FLETC and ICE structure basic training as multi‑component programs (legal, physical, tactical, firearms) and because some partner programs (like CITP) run for fixed blocks of weeks that include firearms modules, one can infer recruits receive multiple classroom and range sessions; the agency also documents routine qualification and continuing training requirements post‑graduation [3][1]. Yet any conversion of “modules” or “sessions” into a definitive hours total would be speculative without access to the internal curricula or a public ICE/FLETC breakdown indicating hours devoted specifically to firearms instruction [4][5]. Independent reports that discuss shortened overall training lengths note the ambiguity rather than provide a quantified firearms‑hours metric [6].
4. Stakes, transparency and how to get a definitive answer
The absence of a published hours figure matters because critics and oversight bodies seeking to evaluate preparedness and use‑of‑force risk need concrete metrics, while ICE emphasizes continuing qualifications and specialized programs for higher‑risk teams like SRTs [1][2]. Journalists and legislators looking for a definitive number would need ICE or FLETC to release the firearms syllabus or an hours breakdown, or obtain internal training records currently described as protected; investigative accounts and FOIA litigation cited in reporting underscore that those documents are often withheld [5][4]. Until such records are released or ICE publishes an explicit firearms‑hours standard for 2025 recruits, the precise answer to “how many hours” remains undocumented in the sources provided [6][5].