President Donald Trump’s acting ICE director is jumping ship after just over a year in the role.
Todd Lyons said he will be leaving the federal government in June to spend more time with his family in Massachusetts, CBS News reported on Thursday night.
Reached for comment, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told the Daily Beast in a statement: “Director Lyons has been a great leader of ICE and key player in helping the Trump administration remove murderers, rapists, pedophiles, terrorists, and gang members from American communities. He jumpstarted an agency that had not been allowed to do its job for four years. Thanks to his leadership, American communities are safer.”
Mullin clarified that Lyons’ last day at ICE will be May 31 and wished him “luck on his next opportunity in the private sector.”
It’s unclear who will fill the opening to lead the department which has seen over a dozen acting directors over the last nine years.
Lyons, 52, was appointed to the position in March 2025 and oversaw the agency’s failed deportation crackdown in Minnesota that resulted in the fatal shootings of two American citizens, among numerous other mishaps throughout the second Trump administration.
The nearly 20-year ICE veteran was hospitalized at least twice due to “stress-related issues” during his short tenure as the agency’s head honcho.
Administration officials told Politico that the strain of the job—and the pressure issued by the White House and its deportation crackdown architect, Stephen Miller—caused him to “struggle to make key decisions for the agency.”
One current and two former DHS officials also told the outlet that Lyons “often takes a long time to make decisions, forcing his deputies to do more work,” and that the pressure he faced caused him to “break out into a full sweat, with his face turning deep red.”
During morning phone calls with administration officials, Miller, 40, would yell at Lyons, according to four people who were on the calls.
The Air Force veteran rejected claims that his stress was caused by pressure from the White House, telling the outlet, “Any stress is in no way related to pressure from the White House, and nothing will get in the way of me doing my job.”
Miller told CBS News in a statement that Lyons is “a phenomenal patriot and dedicated leader who has been at the center of President Trump’s historic efforts to secure our homeland and reverse the Democrats’ sinister border invasion.”
The DHS under Trump 2.0 has seen considerable turnover in just over a year.
Aside from Trump, 79, replacing Border Patrol “commander at large” Gregory Bovino with his border czar Tom Homan after the disaster that was “Operation Metro Fury,” the president also axed Kristi Noem as the department’s secretary in the first Cabinet shakeup of his second term, replacing her with the former Oklahoma senator Mullin.
Now with Lyons gone, Mullin’s department will have to find a new loyal lackey to helm its most controversial agency.
