Trump Withdraws ICE Director Nominee After Republican Senator Blocks Confirmation Hearing - Time Magazine

President Donald Trump on Thursday pulled his nomination of former Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Lance Schroyer to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky blocked Schroyer’s confirmation hearing, stalling the process from moving forward. 

Trump tapped Schroyer to be the next ICE director in June, calling him a “PATRIOT with real operational experience, and proven leader with DECADES of experience locking up the worst of the worst,” and saying that he would play a “vital role” in the Administration’s immigration crackdown. 

The President did not provide an explanation for his decision to withdraw the nomination. The White House did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for more information.

Schroyer’s pick was somewhat of a surprise, given that he has no experience leading a law enforcement agency. He is close to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, whose department houses ICE; Schroyer previously served on Mullin’s security detail, and the Secretary later made him a senior DHS advisor. 

Schroyer also helped lead the Oklahoma Highway Patrol’s efforts to train troopers and enforce an immigration crackdown in conjunction with ICE in his state, and was deputized to make federal immigration enforcement arrests last year.  

Mullin and Trump both urged Congress to swiftly confirm Schroyer following his nomination.

"Lance is coming straight from the operational field where he ran large scale operations and worked alongside state and federal partners to remove illegal aliens from Oklahoma," Mullin said at the time, adding that Trump “made a great pick.”

But Paul, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said in August that he would delay a confirmation hearing for Schroyer until DHS provided further information regarding the investigations into the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this year, a major flashpoint in Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

ICE has not had a Senate-confirmed leader since 2017. Schroyer’s nomination followed former acting ICE Director Todd Lyon’s departure from the agency at the end of May. Long-time immigration official David Venturella has headed ICE, also in an acting capacity, since June 1.

“Americans are calling on ICE to deescalate its immigration enforcement tactics, and the Administration needs to nominate someone who will right the ship, provide transparency, and restore the accountability Americans expect from law enforcement,” Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement, in which he called on Paul to bring Mullin and Venturella before the committee. 

“Despite the public's urging,” Peters added, “we now have an agency that has been engaging in increasingly questionable and escalatory behavior and refuses to be transparent and accountable to the American people.”