The Department of Homeland Security will elevate an immigration insider – with ties to a detention contractor – to oversee arrests and deportations after months of public blowback against the agency.
David Venturella, a longtime official and former private-prison executive, is expected to take over as acting director at Immigration and Customs Enforcement next month, following a period of chaotic DHS raids that generated negative publicity. The New York Times on Tuesday first reported the move, which a DHS spokesperson confirmed.
Mr. Venturella inherits ICE in a period of searing public scrutiny. Immigrant advocates have labeled the agency’s practices unconstitutional, while MAGA hard-liners continue to call for more deportations – at least 1 million a year. (White House border czar Tom Homan has reported 800,000 deportations during the Trump administration.)
Why We Wrote This
Appointing veteran official David Venturella as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could signal a continued pivot by the Trump administration toward quieter, targeted enforcement to reduce public backlash against immigration policy.
President Donald Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations has snagged on court challenges, logistical hurdles, and internal disagreements within the administration over how to execute it. After aggressive arrests and fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by DHS personnel in Minneapolis, the administration scaled back high-profile immigration enforcement surges. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said he wants his agency, which includes ICE, to retreat from headlines.
“I want to bring confidence back to the agency,” Mr. Mullin said at his confirmation hearing in March.
The secretary – like his predecessor, Kristi Noem – comes from a political background, and was expected to lower the public backlash while continuing the deportation push.
Enter Mr. Venturella, who, with his history at ICE, understands the full deportation process at a “very technical level,” says John Fabbricatore, a former ICE field office director and recent Health and Human Services official.
With Mr. Venturella, “You’re getting somebody that can lead right out of the gate,” Mr. Fabbricatore says. “People in ICE know him. They respect him.”
Rising through the ranks
Mr. Venturella’s career in immigration enforcement predates the creation of DHS.
As an official at the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, he defended the government against claims of discriminatory targeting of Mexicans in Chicago. He also appeared to lament federal judges ruling against indefinite immigrant detention – an echo of ICE’s court battles today.
“We can’t win,” said Mr. Venturella in 1999, then the assistant commissioner for detention and removal, in an Associated Press story.
“If we try to remove people and we detain who we think are serious criminals, we get banged over the head for that,” he said. “Then, when we release someone, and they end up committing a crime, we get banged over the head for that. It’s very frustrating.”
The incoming ICE boss has worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations. During Barack Obama’s presidency, Mr. Venturella led ICE’s Secure Communities program, which immigrant advocates accused of overreach through collaboration with local jails. He later worked as an executive at The GEO Group, an ICE detention contractor, before returning to ICE last year.
“The revolving door between the private prison industry and ICE has never been more apparent,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, posted on X.
The United States last had a Senate-confirmed ICE director in 2017. It’s unclear whether Mr. Venturella will face the confirmation process or serve in an interim role for months, as recent leaders have.
Mr. Venturella takes over the agency at a time when it has more resources to arrest and deport than ever before. ICE has moved to expand its detention network and hired thousands of new officers and agents. Within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE includes not just deportation officers but also criminal investigators, covering cases as varied as cybercrime and human trafficking. There are also ICE attorneys who represent the government in immigration court.
ICE’s goal to detain and deport unauthorized immigrants has met fierce opposition from Democrats and rights groups. Those critics say officers are violating immigrants’ due process rights while subjecting detainees – including families with children – to inhumane conditions. Some 60,300 people were held in ICE detention as of last month.
Trump administration officials say mounting threats against immigration officers have required larger arrest teams, for security, in “sanctuary” cities. Despite increased public scrutiny, ICE reports securing some 1,800 agreements with local and state law enforcement – up from 135 at the end of the Biden administration. The program lets police partner with ICE to identify immigrants in local jails who are eligible for deportation.
A “political football”
The resigning head of ICE, Todd Lyons, is expected to serve his last day on May 31. Secretary Mullin said Mr. Lyons “jumpstarted an agency that had not been allowed to do its job for four years” and made Americans safer.
Mr. Lyons, who took white-hot heat from Democrats in Congress for his leadership, said he wants to spend more time with his family and not miss his son’s high school sports.
ICE is often a “political football,” Mr. Lyons told the Monitor last year. “We want to ensure that ICE’s public safety mission’s upheld, that we are seen as a dedicated law enforcement agency that’s making a difference in the communities.”