New leadership at ICE following mass deportation setbacks

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday announced new leadership at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as the agency struggles to fulfill President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans. 

Todd Lyons, a member of the senior executive service and acting executive associate director of ICE’s enforcement and removal operations, will serve as acting director. He is an Air Force veteran who started out as an ICE agent in 2007 before holding multiple leadership positions at the agency.  

Madison Sheahan, who was secretary of Louisiana’s Wildlife and Fisheries Department, will be deputy director. Previously, she served as an aide for Noem during her time as governor of South Dakota. 

A press release notes that, in her state leadership role, Sheahan oversees a $280 million budget and more than 800 employees. ICE has more than 20,000 personnel and an annual budget of approximately $8 billion. 

“Todd Lyons and Madison Sheahan are work horses, strong executors and accountable leaders who will lead the men and women of ICE to achieve the American people’s mandate to target, arrest and deport illegal aliens,” Noem said in a statement. 

Caleb Vitello — a senior ICE official who Trump had named acting director — was reassigned within the agency in February. 

ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed leader since President Barack Obama’s administration. 

A New York Times analysis found that ICE is arresting more migrants than it did under President Joe Biden, but deportations are down. The report, however, partly attributed that to there being fewer border crossings. 

Republicans in Congress are currently working on legislation to provide more funding toward immigration enforcement. 

Noem also has placed the blame for hampered agency operations on recent alleged leaks within DHS. On March 7, the secretary accused two individuals at DHS of improperly disclosing information about immigration raids. 

“These two were leaking our enforcement operations that we had planned and were going to conduct in several cities and expose[d] law enforcement to vulnerabilities, to those ops being jeopardized, to where their lives would be in danger,” Noem said Sunday on Face the Nation. “So they will be prosecuted, and they could face up to 10 years in federal prison because they did that.”

Noem also said that DHS employees would undergo polygraph tests in an attempt to root out leakers.