The White House has withdrawn Lance Schroyer’s nomination to lead US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), leaving the agency without a Senate-confirmed director as it carries out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Mr Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper with limited immigration experience, is closely associated with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former senator from Oklahoma. The White House gave no reason for the decision in a brief statement and did not say when a replacement would be nominated.
The withdrawal comes as ICE faces intense scrutiny over its enforcement operations, including questions about how officers have been recruited and trained while the agency has expanded rapidly.
Officers have shot and killed several people, including two American citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year. Critics have condemned the agency’s activities as arrests continued to rise, reaching almost 51,000 in August — the highest monthly total during Mr Trump’s second administration.
Senator Rand Paul, the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had declined to schedule a hearing on Mr Schroyer’s nomination while waiting for information from the Department of Homeland Security about civilian deaths during ICE operations.
“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,” Mr Paul told the Associated Press.
“And I’m still waiting.”
Mr Paul said he had intended to hold a hearing on the nomination but that it never took place. He said he learned that the nomination had been withdrawn only when the White House announced it.
ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration. David Venturella, a former executive at a private prison company, returned as acting director earlier this year after Todd Lyons resigned.
When Mr Trump nominated Mr Schroyer in June, he described him on Truth Social as “a PATRIOT with real operational experience” and a “proven leader with DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst.”
Mr Mullin took over the Department of Homeland Security in March and pledged a lower-profile approach to immigration enforcement, after an aggressive crackdown in major cities prompted widespread public condemnation. Arrests have nevertheless continued to accelerate.
