Trump appoints new ICE director to lead immigration crackdown after Noem chaos

The Department of Homeland Security has announced a new acting director of ICE, the agency tasked with leading President Donald Trump’s mass deportation push.

New DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who himself only recently succeeded Kristi Noem, has chosen David Venturella to take over from Todd Lyons, who is retiring at the end of this month.

Venturella previously worked for ICE during the George W Bush and Barack Obama administrations, running the agency’s Secure Communities program, which coordinates state and federal law enforcement operations pertaining to illegal immigration.

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He subsequently crossed into the private sector to serve as senior vice president of client relations at GEO Group, which runs prisons and detention centers, before leaving in 2023 and working as a paid consultant for two years. He rejoined ICE as a senior adviser in February 2025.

His old firm holds over $1 billion-worth of government contracts, according to NBC News, and previously counted Trump’s border czar Tom Homan among its leadership, inviting potential conflict of interest concerns.

Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez has already opposed Venturella’s promotion, writing on X: “Let’s be clear: his appointment is to ensure Trump’s corporate bosses continue profiting from our communities’ pain.”

Under Lyons, ICE doubled its workforce to 22,000 and claimed to have deported 600,000 illegal immigrants last year.

However, it attracted increasing hostility as it carried out unpopular raids on migrant neighbourhoods in Democrat-run cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon, sparking angry protests.

The tinderbox finally ignited in Minneapolis in January when two protesters – Renee Good and Alex Pretti, a poet and intensive care nurse – were shot dead in street confrontations with federal agents.

The public outrage led Trump to order Noem to dial down the tension, demoting Customs and Border Protection commander-at-large Greg Bovino and placing Homan in charge, who swiftly drew a line under Operation Metro Surge and withdrew his forces from Minnesota.

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Noem herself was soon fired, the president having grown weary of her chaotic and controversy-riddled tenure. He replaced her with Mullin, formerly an Oklahoma Republican senator.

Homan has since turned his attention towards New York, lashing out at Gov. Kathy Hochul after she and state lawmakers backed new legislation intended to safeguard residents’ rights, which the former saw as an attempt to frustrate co-operation between his agents and local authorities.

The prospect of ICE playing a role in this summer’s upcoming FIFA World Cup in the U.S. has also been raised, with some warning of potential clashes between supporters and agents, but Miami, for one, has said it has been assured by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that they will not be present in stadiums.

Looking further ahead, Trump refused to rule out sending ICE to polling stations during November’s midterm elections Tuesday, reviving dubious election integrity fears, the same day that the House Judiciary Committee released a report alleging that the agency was deporting detainees before they had a chance to reach trial.

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