An ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer’s badge and weapon seen in Washington, D.C., August 30, 2025. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – Longtime federal immigration official David Venturella will lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency leading President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesman.
Venturella will replace outgoing acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, who announced last month that he would leave his post by May 31, a DHS official told States Newsroom on Wednesday. Venturella will also take over this role on an acting basis. Since Trump took office in 2017, ICE has been without a lasting Senate-confirmed director.
Venturella will oversee an agency that has come under intense congressional and public scrutiny after federal immigration agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.
The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti led to a months-long shutdown of DHS after Democrats pushed for restrictions on federal immigration officials. The closure is over last month, and Republicans have made progress on funding ICE and Customs and Border Protection for the next three yearsthrough a intricate legislative process that does not require Democratic votes.
Venturella worked at DHS during the Obama administration, when he directed the Safe Communities program, in which local law enforcement agencies provided fingerprints and booking information to federal immigration officials to identify immigrants in the country without legal authorization. The Obama administration eventually ended the program, but Trump revived it in 2017.
Venturella also worked for the private prison company GEO, which makes billions from government contracts to detain immigrants across the country. He retired from GEO in 2023 after serving as vice president of customer relations.
