Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ensuring that an agency at the forefront of President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda will remain without a Senate-confirmed leader for at least a while longer. The White House said Thursday (September 18, 2026) that it was withdrawing its nomination of Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper, to lead U.S.
Schroyer, who has little experience in immigration, is close to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former U.S. senator from Oklahoma. The White House offered no comment in a brief statement.
The latest setback comes as the agency remains under withering scrutiny over its handling of enforcement operations. Critics have questioned how ICE has recruited and trained officers as it raced to hire thousands to carry out President Trump’s promise of mass deportations.
Officers have shot and killed multiple people, including two American citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Arrests have continued to accelerate, reaching nearly 51,000 in August, the highest single monthly arrest total during the second Trump administration. He only heard about the nomination being withdrawn when the White House made it public Thursday (September 17). ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed leader since the Obama administration.
Senator Rand Paul, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had refused to hold a hearing on the nominee until DHS provided him with information he had been seeking about civilian deaths during ICE enforcement operations.
Mr Paul said he intended to hold a hearing on Schroyer’s nomination, but it never came to that.
David Venturella, a former executive at a private prison operator, returned to the agency as acting director earlier this year after Todd Lyons resigned.
