Everyone Graduates ICE Killing Academy
Normal law enforcement academies remove more recruits than quit. At ICE, the pattern is inverted—74% quit, only 26% are dismissed. Academy attrition collapsed from 12.2% to 4.2%. Two out of three recruits who would have washed out are now put in the field. Part 2 of 3.
Two out of three recruits who once would have washed out are now put in the field
In Part 1, I showed that 66.5% of ICE's surge hires have no discernible prior law enforcement experience—contradicting the administration's claim that 85% are seasoned professionals. But even if ICE is hiring people with no police background, maybe the training academy catches the problems? Maybe the accelerated 6 days a week for 8-week ICE Academy crash boot camp course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) weeds out those who should not carry a badge and a gun?
Among ICE officers who left during their academy tenure, 74% quit. Only 26% were dismissed by the institution. This is not a good sign.
Normal law enforcement academies show the opposite pattern—the institution removes more people than quit. At ICE, the pattern is inverted—early exits are disproportionately voluntary quits rather than institutional removals.
What Academies Are Supposed to Do
Law enforcement academies exist to screen out people who should not become officers. Physical fitness failures. Academic washouts. Conduct problems. Background issues that surface during training. The academy is the last institutional checkpoint before someone gets a badge, a gun, and the authority to use lethal force.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) tracks academy outcomes nationally. In 2022, state and local academies showed a 14.6% non-completion rate. Of those who did not complete training:
This concludes Part 2 on how the academy itself becomes a second failure point. The consequences of this turnstile academy become clear in Part 3, Unsupervised ICE: Built for Violence.
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