Trump nominates former Oklahoma trooper Lance Schroyer as ICE director

President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he has nominated Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper and senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In a post on his social-media platform, Trump urged the Senate to act quickly on the nomination, noting that Schroyer would be the first Senate-confirmed ICE director since 2017.

"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," Trump wrote.

Schroyer, who previously served as a major in the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety and as a U.S. Marine, has not held a position within ICE. He currently advises Secretary Mullin and was part of Mullin’s security detail while the senator served in Washington. The agency has been led on an acting basis by David Venturella, a former ICE official, since May; Venturella will remain in the acting role until Schroyer is confirmed.

ICE has faced heightened scrutiny following a series of high-profile incidents, including the killing of two American citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this year. The agency has not had a Senate-confirmed director since an Obama-era official retired in January 2017.