President Donald Trump announced Saturday that he will nominate Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper and Marine, to be the next director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Lance has firsthand experience getting Illegal Aliens OFF our streets and, just like ME and our Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, he LOVES the men and women of ICE,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Trump, who called Schroyer a “proven leader” with over 29 years of law enforcement experience in Oklahoma, called on the Senate to immediately confirm him.
ICE, which is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, has played a key role in Trump’s plans to crack down on illegal immigration. CNN has reached out to the DHS for comment.
Longtime immigration official David Venturella is serving as the acting ICE director, after the previous acting director, Todd Lyons, stepped down this spring. The agency has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since the Obama administration.
Trump’s nomination announcement comes after a chaotic year for ICE and DHS.
Lyons, a veteran of the federal agency who was tasked with overseeing the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan, faced immense scrutiny as the agency ramped up arrests last year and on the heels of the fatal shootings of two US citizens by federal agents in January.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who took the reigns in March after Trump fired Kristi Noem, has begun to make some policy changes but faces pressure from lawmakers, including Republicans, to go further in seeking to right the embattled department.
Mullin has long been a staunch supporter of Trump’s immigration crackdown. But during his confirmation hearing, he said there should be some changes as to how ICE is deployed around the country, telling senators, “I would love to see ICE become more a transport than on the front line.”
CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.