Has DHS contracted foreign military or police trainers for U.S. law enforcement agencies in the past decade?
Executive summary
There is no direct documentation in the provided reporting that the Department of Homeland Security has, in the past decade, contracted foreign military or foreign police trainers to provide training to U.S. law enforcement agencies; instead the sources show a pattern of U.S. training for foreign partners, international trainees attending U.S. programs, and domestic agencies—like FLETC—training or partnering with international counterparts [1] [2] [3]. Reporting about police departments sending trainers overseas (Los Angeles Police Department, for example) confirms U.S. entities export training, but the materials supplied do not establish the reverse—paid foreign military or police trainers formally contracted by DHS to instruct U.S. forces [4].
1. What the public-facing DHS record actually shows
Official DHS pages emphasize that DHS components coordinate and provide training to a broad set of domestic partners and that the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) offers programs to many domestic and international agencies, meaning DHS is a trainer and a host for international participants rather than a buyer of foreign training services [5] [1] [6]. DHS publicly frames its role as coordinating training, simulating exercises, and providing subject-matter expertise to U.S. state, local, tribal, territorial, campus, and federal law enforcement partners—including roughly 80,000 DHS law enforcement officers across nine agencies—without naming contracts that hire foreign militaries or foreign police as trainers [2] [7] [5].
2. International exchanges and the “train the trainer” environment
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency guidance cited in the reporting shows the U.S. Department of Defense routinely provides training to foreign governments and that training can occur at DoD sites and selected DHS Coast Guard facilities, and that programs often support a “train-the-trainer” model for foreign partners [3]. That DSCA material demonstrates U.S. policy and capacity to instruct foreigners and to host multinational exchanges, but it does not document foreign military or police personnel being brought in under contract to teach American law enforcement inside the U.S. [3].
3. Evidence of U.S. police training foreign forces, not vice versa
Independent reporting raises human‑rights concerns about U.S. police agencies exporting training and advice overseas—most notably Los Angeles Police Department ties to foreign police training programs cited by the Los Angeles Times—but that coverage documents outbound training (U.S. officers going to or instructing foreign agencies), not DHS hiring foreign trainers to instruct U.S. officers [4]. The LAPD example underscores the larger, documented pattern: U.S. departments and federal training centers have been involved in international exchanges and instruction, which can complicate accountability, but this reporting does not flip that relationship to show foreign trainers contracted for domestic instruction [4].
4. What the sources do not show—and the limits of the record
None of the provided DHS pages, FLETC materials, DSCA chapter excerpts, or secondary reporting explicitly state that DHS contracted foreign military or police trainers to teach U.S. law enforcement agencies over the last decade; therefore a definitive affirmative claim cannot be supported from these documents [5] [1] [3] [2]. The absence of evidence in these specific sources is not proof such contracts never existed—only that they are not recorded or described in the materials supplied here. To establish whether contracts exist would require procurement records, Federal Procurement Data System entries, DHS contract announcements, or investigative reporting focused on contracting and vendor lists—documents not provided in the current set [5] [1].
5. Alternative explanations and open questions
A plausible alternative reading, consistent with the supplied sources, is that U.S. agencies prefer to deploy U.S.-based trainers and to host international trainees (FLETC and DoD programs), while local departments sometimes engage in bilateral exchanges where officers travel abroad to instruct or advise, creating the appearance of foreign-to-U.S. influence in isolated cases [1] [3] [4]. Hidden agendas can cut both ways: export of U.S. training can be framed as capacity-building or as complicity in abuses, and the lack of transparent contracting data can shield either legitimate international collaboration or controversial outsourcing; the provided materials do not resolve which dynamic predominates [1] [4].