Longtime ICE official David Venturella has been chosen to lead the immigration agency after its former acting director’s departure was announced last month, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Tuesday evening.
Venturella was executive director of ICE’s Secure Communities program, which deals with people in the country illegally who are in the custody of other law enforcement agencies.
He also served at the private prison company GEO Group as a senior vice president of client relations until 2023. GEO Group has over $1 billion worth of contracts with ICE, according to public records.
After he retired from GEO, Venturella was a consultant for the company, advising on new and existing contracts, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
President Barack Obama ended the Secure Communities program in 2014. Then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a memo at the time that the program alienated immigrant communities from local law enforcement.
Under the program, authorities shared digital fingerprints from everyone booked into jail with federal authorities, who used it to look for people in the country without authorization.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reinstitute the Secure Communities program in 2017, during his first term.
Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March and replaced her with a Republican ally, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.
Trump campaigned for his second term in office by promising mass deportations. After he retook office, ICE was thrust into the national spotlight when federal officers, some of them from ICE, carried out immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities.
During the operation in Minneapolis, federal officers fatally shot two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., a critic of Trump’s immigration policies, objected to Venturella’s selection to lead ICE.
“Let’s be clear: his appointment is to ensure Trump’s corporate bosses continue profiting from our communities’ pain,” she wrote on X Tuesday night.
There have been signs that the Trump administration, faced with criticism, has tried to roll back some of the more aggressive and controversial tactics that resulted in protests over the actions of masked agents in American cities.
In April, two DHS officials told NBC News that ICE field offices have been instructed that ICE officers should no longer enter homes without judicial warrants.
Entering homes with only administrative warrants – which are different from judicial warrants signed by judges – was a departure from past procedures. The change was revealed in a 2025 internal ICE document that whistleblowers shared with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
Venturella is set to replace Todd Lyons, who was the acting director of ICE but was never confirmed by the Senate and whose departure was announced in April. The last time an ICE director was confirmed by the Senate was in 2014, when senators confirmed Sarah Saldaña, who left the agency in 2017.
Lyons oversaw ICE during a tumultuous tenure characterized by mass immigration crackdowns in Democratic-run cities and public outrage over the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal officials in Minneapolis.
Lyons’ last day was previously announced as May 31.
