Trump Taps Private Prison Veteran David Venturella to Lead ICE

The Trump administration on Tuesday announced that David Venturella, a longtime federal immigration official and former senior executive at the private prison company GEO Group, will become the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on June 1. Venturella will replace Todd Lyons, who announced in April that he would step down by the end of May after roughly 14 months running the agency. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the appointment in a statement first reported by CBS News, calling Venturella "uniquely qualified to lead ICE during this period of expanded operational tempo."

Venturella spent more than two decades at ICE in career roles, including a stint as the director of the agency's Secure Communities program, before departing in 2012 to join GEO Group, the for-profit detention contractor that operates more than 30 immigration jails and runs the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, which tracks immigrants through GPS ankle monitors. He returned to ICE in early 2025 as a senior adviser and has been credited with overseeing the buildup of detention capacity that has accompanied the administration's nationwide enforcement surge. According to public contracting records, GEO Group has received more than $1.8 billion in ICE contracts during the current fiscal year alone.

Civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups condemned the appointment within hours, arguing that putting a former detention contractor at the helm of the agency that awards detention contracts creates a textbook conflict of interest. "This is not a revolving door — it's a fast-pass lane," said Setareh Ghandehari of the Detention Watch Network in a statement Tuesday afternoon. The ACLU's Eunice Cho said Venturella's record at GEO Group, including supervision of facilities that have been the subject of more than 40 deaths-in-custody complaints since 2020, "should disqualify him from any senior public health and safety role, let alone leading ICE."

Republicans defended the choice and pointed to Venturella's career experience inside the agency. Senate Homeland Security Chair Rand Paul said in a brief statement that Venturella "knows the agency from the inside out and is the right person to bring order to a chaotic process." House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan said his committee would invite the new acting director to testify in June about ICE's removal pace, which DHS says is on track to reach 540,000 deportations this fiscal year — more than double the figure from fiscal year 2024.

Lyons, the outgoing acting director, has clashed in recent weeks with the White House over the pace of removals and over use-of-force incidents at workplace enforcement actions in Los Angeles, Houston and Newark. Two senior ICE field office directors have resigned since April, and the agency is operating without a Senate-confirmed director — a vacancy now in its sixteenth month. Trump's previous nominee, Caleb Vitello, withdrew last August after his confirmation stalled in committee over questions about his role in family separations during the first Trump administration. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has indicated he will not move to confirm a permanent director before the August recess.