President Donald Trump 's White House has abruptly pulled the plug on his controversial pick to run ICE, less than three months after announcing the nomination with fanfare, according to the New York Times.
The White House withdrew Lance Schroyer's nomination in a brief statement posted online, offering no explanation for the reversal.
Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper with no prior ICE experience, had been part of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin's security detail back when Mullin served in the Senate, and was widely seen as one of Mullin's closest allies.
According to the Times, "Trump announced the pick in June with characteristic bravado."
"Lance has firsthand experience getting Illegal Aliens OFF our streets and, just like ME and our Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, he LOVES the men and women of ICE," the president boasted on Truth Social at the time.
But the nomination stalled amid demands for information from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has had long-running tension with Mullin, and it ultimately never made it to a vote. ICE has now gone without a Senate-confirmed director since 2017, spanning both the Biden administration and Trump's first term. David Venturella, a former ICE official who also worked at a private prison company, remains the agency's acting chief.
ICE faces "mounting scrutiny nationwide" with its operations sparking protests and pushback from local officials in cities across the country. Arrests have simultaneously hit record levels under Mullin's watch, including one five-day stretch this summer in which the agency apprehended 10,000 immigrants.
Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security has said why Schroyer's nomination was scrapped, leaving the agency without a permanent, Senate-confirmed leader even as its footprint — and the controversy surrounding it — continues to grow, the Times reported.