What Happened
President Trump announced on June 27 that he is nominating Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper, as the next director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If confirmed, Schroyer would be the first Senate-confirmed ICE director since Sarah Saldana left the post in early 2017, ending nearly a decade of acting directors, thirteen of them across two administrations. David Venturella, a former private prison executive who has served as acting director since June 1, will remain in that role until confirmation.
Background
Schroyer spent 29 years in Oklahoma law enforcement, most of it with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, where he later became a major overseeing the Emergency Services Unit. He is a former US Marine. He has no prior experience working directly for ICE. His federal role, senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, began earlier this year, and he previously worked on Mullin’s Senate security detail. His work in Oklahoma included coordinating 287(g) partnerships, agreements that let state and local police carry out certain federal immigration enforcement functions under ICE supervision.
The nomination came days after the Supreme Court ruled to strip Temporary Protected Status from thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants, clearing a path for their deportation, a separate development that gave the announcement additional political weight that week.
What Different Sides Are Saying
The administration. Trump called Schroyer a “PATRIOT with real operational experience” and said he has “DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst, including murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers.” Mullin said Schroyer is “coming straight from the operational field” and would “empower the men and women of ICE.” Both urged the Senate to confirm him quickly.
Fact check: Schroyer’s 29 years in Oklahoma law enforcement is accurate and confirmed across multiple outlets. The claim that this amounts to direct experience “locking up” federal immigration criminals is a stretch. His career was in state highway patrol and disaster/civil disturbance response, not ICE, and his only tie to federal immigration enforcement is coordinating 287(g) partnerships from the state side. Several former senior ICE officials, cited by AP and PBS, noted this is a departure from the pattern of prior confirmed ICE directors, who were typically attorneys or had direct federal immigration experience.
Republican allies. Senator James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) praised Schroyer’s “commitment to law enforcement and public safety,” pointing to his home-state record. This is a straightforward endorsement based on shared state ties and doesn’t contain a specific factual claim to check.
Critics and skeptics. Coverage from CNN and NBC News notes Schroyer’s selection came as a surprise to ICE’s own rank and file, and that lawmakers are expected to scrutinize his lack of experience managing a large federal bureaucracy or national policy during confirmation hearings. Democrats have been divided in their broader approach to ICE. Progressive members have pushed for funding and authority limits, while party leadership has focused criticism on oversight and accountability for enforcement tactics rather than opposing the agency’s existence outright. Neither position is a claim requiring fact-checking, they’re policy stances.
Independent commentary. A piece in UnHerd argued the real story is that the ICE director job has become difficult to fill given the scrutiny the agency faces, noting Schroyer is a “fairly obscure figure” for the role and that even Trump’s first-term nominee, Tom Homan, failed to win confirmation. This is opinion and analysis rather than a factual claim.
Context Worth Noting
This nomination follows a period of intense scrutiny of ICE, including the fatal shootings of two US citizens in Minneapolis (Renee Good and Alex Pretti) and, separately, a DHS watchdog review launched into rising ICE detainee deaths and use-of-force standards, both covered in our earlier ICE debate fact-check piece. Schroyer would inherit that scrutiny directly if confirmed.
A hearing date has not yet been announced. Worth revisiting once confirmation hearings are scheduled, since that’s where his qualifications will actually be tested rather than characterized by supporters or critics.
Related Links:
- CNN: Trump says he’ll nominate former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer as ICE director
- NBC News: Trump says he’s nominating former Oklahoma State Trooper Lance Schroyer to be ICE director
- PBS News/AP: Trump says he is nominating former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer as ICE director
- CBS News: Trump nominates former Oklahoma trooper Lance Schroyer to be ICE director
- ABC News: Trump names Lance Schroyer as new ICE director nominee
- Newsweek: Who is Lance Schroyer? What to Know About Trump ICE Director Nominee
