White House Pulls Schroyer Nomination to Lead ICE

The White House on Thursday withdrew President Donald Trump’s nomination of Lance Schroyer to run U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The notice to the Senate gave no reason. ICE will stay under Acting Director David Venturella.

Trump named Schroyer in June. On Truth Social he called the former Marine and 29-year Oklahoma trooper “a PATRIOT with real operational experience” and a “proven leader with DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst.” He wrote that Schroyer had “firsthand experience getting Illegal Aliens OFF our streets” and told the Senate to confirm him “IMMEDIATELY.”

The file never received a confirmation hearing. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had told the Department of Homeland Security he wanted an update on internal investigations into civilian deaths during enforcement operations before he would put the nomination on the calendar. Two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis in January.

“I don’t have a concern with who the nominee was. I had asked them to give me an update on the internal investigation into civilian deaths,” Paul said after the withdrawal. “And I’m still waiting.” A Paul spokesman told Politico the senator had not placed a formal hold and “has not expressed opposition to the nominee.”

Schroyer was a senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and had run Mullin’s Senate security detail. He helped build Oklahoma’s 287(g) partnerships that trained state troopers to work with ICE. He had not previously run ICE or any agency of that size. Mullin left the Senate in March to take DHS.

ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama years. Todd Lyons left the acting job earlier this year. Venturella, a former private-prison executive who had served at the agency before, came back to the acting slot and will remain there. The White House did not say when it would send another name.

The vacancy sits on the agency that carries the interior half of Trump’s deportation program. Arrests hit nearly 51,000 in August, the highest monthly total of the second term, according to figures cited in Associated Press reporting. Recruitment, training, and use-of-force cases are all under scrutiny in the same weeks the House has left town until after the Nov. 3 midterms.