In a significant setback for former President Donald Trump and his administration’s immigration agenda, the White House has formally withdrawn the nomination of Richard Schroyer to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), after a high-profile Republican senator joined Democratic lawmakers in blocking his confirmation.
Schroyer, a 29-year veteran of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and former U.S. Marine, was tapped by Trump in June to fill the top ICE leadership role while serving as a senior aide to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a close political ally of Schroyer’s. The Department of Homeland Security oversees ICE and all federal border and immigration enforcement agencies, and Schroyer’s nomination raised eyebrows from the start, given his long history in state-level law enforcement and no prior experience managing a large federal agency of ICE’s size and scope.
The nomination hit an immediate wall after Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, refused to advance Schroyer’s candidacy to a full Senate vote, blocking the nomination in committee amid demands for more transparency around two fatal January shootings of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. Paul’s opposition created a deadlock that left the White House with no path to confirmation, leading officials to pull the nomination in a brief one-paragraph memo released Thursday that offered no public explanation for the decision. The BBC has confirmed it reached out to the White House for additional context and comment following the withdrawal, with no response issued as of reporting.
The vacancy at the top of ICE is far from a new issue: the agency has not had a Senate-confirmed permanent director since 2017, and has been led by a rotating cast of acting chiefs for nearly a decade. Currently, the agency is headed by David Venturella, a former private prison industry executive who took over after former acting director Todd Lyon announced his departure from the role in April.
Thursday’s withdrawal represents a clear defeat for both Trump and Mullin, who had pushed Schroyer’s candidacy as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to fulfill a core 2024 campaign promise of carrying out the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history. The January shootings that sparked Schroyer’s confirmation block also triggered nationwide public protests earlier this year: the two victims, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were both U.S. citizens killed in separate confrontations with ICE agents while participating in local protests in Minneapolis.