A whistleblower report revealed Monday that ICE has been cutting corners on essential training for federal agents—despite what ICE chief Todd Lyons told Congress earlier this month.

In a lengthy memo produced by Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Permanent Investigations, whistleblower documents indicated that new recruits were receiving significantly less training amid a surge in hiring, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

The schedules included in the whistleblower documents “indicate that current ICE recruits receive nearly 250 fewer hours of training than previous cohorts of recruits,” the memo stated.

Earlier this month, Lyons claimed that while ICE had reduced the number of training days from 75 to 42, the organization had adjusted the schedule in order to preserve the amount of training. “Five days a week was five eight-hour days. We’ve gone to six 12-hour days,” he said.

Whistleblower documents included in the memo indicated that ICE had also made sweeping changes to its training syllabus and testing requirements for cadets.

A syllabus from this month compared to one from before the agency’s hiring surge indicated that ICE has cut entire modules, including force simulation training, government structure, criminal versus removal proceedings, and use of force.

The standards for testing have also been significantly reduced. ICE recruits previously needed to pass 25 practical exams in order to graduate, and now they...

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