The Trump administration on Friday replaced the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the latest leadership shake-up as agency officials try to meet White House pressure to ramp up deportations and arrests across the country.
The decision to reassign Caleb Vitello, a career official who was selected for the job in December, comes as the agency tries to meet the extraordinary promises of a mass deportation effort laid out during President Trump’s campaign.
Earlier this month, the two top officials overseeing deportation efforts were moved to regional roles with the agency. On Friday, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, said that Mr. Vitello would oversee deportation efforts and remain with ICE.
As of Friday evening, it was unclear who had been selected to run the agency. ICE’s official leadership page still showed Mr. Vitello as its leader on Friday after the news spread.
The administration is tapping Madison D. Sheahan, the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, to be deputy director of the agency, according to an administration official familiar with the hiring, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the preliminary plans.
Before overseeing conservation, hunting and fishing in Louisiana, Ms. Sheahan established ties with Kristi Noem, now the homeland security secretary. Ms. Sheahan was an aide to Ms. Noem when she served as governor of South Dakota, and then became the state’s executive director for the Republican Party.
ICE officials have ramped up arrests across the country, including major operations in cities like Chicago and New York City. They have publicized the efforts through ride-alongs with journalists and social media posts highlighting the arrests.
From the beginning of the Trump administration through mid-February, ICE officers made more than 15,000 arrests, according to the Department of Homeland Security, at more than double the daily rate seen in recent years.
Supporters of the administration’s crackdown said that more funding from Congress was needed.
“ICE is nowhere near capable of mass deportations due to manpower and resource constraints. Until Congress provides the money, the constrained interior enforcement environment must be navigated by someone with a deep law enforcement background,” said RJ Hauman, the president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement, which favors restrictive immigration policies.
But White House officials have been vocal about wanting more from the agency.
“We need more arrests and deportations,” Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, said in an interview earlier this month.
He said that leadership at ICE was doing well but that they “got to do better.”
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