Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been abandoned by the White House after a Republican blocked the nomination.
The White House withdrew Lance Schroyer’s nomination on Thursday, less than three months after Trump announced him as his choice to lead the agency at the center of his mass-deportation campaign.
The administration did not give a reason for the withdrawal, but it came after Sen. Rand Paul, the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, refused to move forward with Schroyer’s confirmation hearing.
Paul, a longtime foe of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, had demanded more information from the administration about the investigation into two immigration agents who shot U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis before allowing the nomination to proceed.
Mullin, who had backed Schroyer, had also clashed publicly with Paul during a fiery confirmation hearing earlier this year, when Paul accused him of having justified a 2017 attack that left Paul with serious injuries.
The former Senator had called Paul a “freaking snake” at the time, and Paul ultimately became the only Republican senator to vote against Mullin’s confirmation as DHS secretary.
Schroyer worked as a state trooper in Mullin’s home state of Oklahoma.
He was previously in the U.S. Marine Corps and serves as senior advisor to Mullin.
But his nomination surprised some immigration officials, who questioned whether he was qualified enough to lead ICE and told Politico last month that they preferred acting director Dave Venturella, an ally of border czar Tom Homan.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House about the withdrawal, which marks yet another nomination that failed to make it through a Senate controlled by Trump’s own party.
Announcing his pick on Truth Social in June, Trump said of Schroyer: “He is a PATRIOT with real operational experience, and proven leader with DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst, including spearheading 287g Law Enforcement partnerships with ICE!”
The withdrawal is also a blow for Mullin, who previously said that Schroyer was one of a few candidates for the role who could actually clear Senate confirmation, which would boost morale at the agency.
ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration, instead cycling through acting leadership, including Caleb Vitello, Todd Lyons, who resigned in May, and now Venturella.
Lyons, working under controversial former DHS secretary Kristi Noem, oversaw the dramatic escalation of Trump’s deportation campaign, including the deployment of ICE agents into major cities and increasingly confrontational street operations.
The agency came under intense scrutiny following the deaths of Good and Pretti in Minneapolis, and concerns remain over its tactics and the increasing number of people being arrested who have no criminal convictions.
While the administration previously promised its deportation strategy would involve rounding up “the worst of the worst,” Reuters recently found that people with criminal convictions accounted for less than a quarter of ICE arrests in July, compared with nearly 60 percent in December 2024.
