President Donald Trump has selected Immigration and Customs Enforcement official David Venturella to serve as acting ICE director following Todd Lyons’s departure from the agency.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed to the Washington Examiner that Venturella will take over the agency once Lyons’s resignation goes into effect on May 31. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced Lyons’s surprise departure in mid-April, writing on social media that Lyons would move on to a private sector role.
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Venturella served in DHS under former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and returned to the department under President Donald Trump. The longtime immigration official is a political ally of border czar Tom Homan, according to CBS News.
Venturella worked for the GEO Group, a private rehabilitation-based prison company that works with various government agency partners, including ICE, in the time between his roles in the Obama and second Trump administrations.
Lyons oversaw the agency for just over a year under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem‘s tenure. Under his leadership, ICE experienced a great deal of public blowback from Democrats over its immigration enforcement tactics. The agency’s controversy came to a head in January 2026, when an ICE officer shot and killed U.S. citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis.
Mullin praised Lyons’s work at the helm of the agency in the April statement announcing his resignation.
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“Director Lyons has been a great leader of ICE and key player in helping the Trump administration remove murderers, rapists, pedophiles, terrorists, and gang members from American communities. He jumpstarted an agency that had not been allowed to do its job for four years. Thanks to his leadership, American communities are safe,” Mullin said in his statement.
Venturella favors quieter, under-the-radar immigration enforcement operations compared to previous enforcement tactics, according to the New York Times.
