President Trump said on Saturday he was nominating Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper, to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump told the Senate to move quickly to confirm Mr. Schroyer, who would be the first Senate-confirmed leader of the high-profile agency 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,” Mr. Trump wrote.
ICE has been at the center of the Trump administration’s push to ramp up deportations across the country. Those efforts have brought heavy scrutiny to the agency, particularly after immigration agents killed two Americans in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Mr. Schroyer appears to have limited experience managing national policies and had never worked at ICE before Mr. Mullin took over as homeland security secretary in March. He is currently working as a senior adviser to Mr. Mullin and previously was a major at the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety. He served as a U.S. Marine.
In May, Mr. Trump tapped David Venturella, a former career Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, to lead ICE in an acting capacity. Mr. Venturella will stay on as acting director until Mr. Schroyer is confirmed, a Department of Homeland Security official said.
The agency has been without a Senate-confirmed director since an Obama administration official retired in January 2017. In his first term, Mr. Trump tried to install Tom Homan, who now serves as the White House border czar, as the permanent director of ICE, but his nomination stalled in the Senate.
Mr. Schroyer hails from the same state as Mr. Mullin, the new homeland security chief, who praised the pick in a post on social media.
“With over 29 years of law enforcement experience, Lance will play a vital role in helping deliver on the President’s mandate from the American people to target, arrest, and deport illegal aliens,” Mr. Mullin wrote.
Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting.
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