A veteran immigration enforcement official with significant connections to the detention industry is anticipated to assume leadership of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to sources from Fox News. This anticipated appointment is likely to intensify scrutiny from Democrats due to the official’s previous affiliations with a major private prison company. Meanwhile, Republicans are advocating for increased funding and stepped-up deportation efforts for the agency.
David Venturella is poised to be appointed as the acting director of ICE following the departure of the current Acting ICE Director, Todd Lyons, who is set to step down next week, as per multiple sources familiar with the situation.
Venturella has been serving as a senior advisor within the Trump administration at ICE. His role reportedly included a senior position within the division responsible for managing detention center contracts. However, ICE has clarified that he was not involved in reviewing, approving, or recommending these contracts.
Venturella’s recruitment was facilitated by Tom Homan after President Donald Trump assumed office.
In a related note, a photograph caption indicates that ICE senior advisor Dave Venturella is expected to lead the agency in an acting capacity. (Photo credit: Ron Holman, Visalia Times-Delta via Imagn Content Services, LLC)
Before his current stint in government, Venturella worked for more than a decade at a private prison firm called The GEO Group, which has contracts with ICE to operate immigration detention facilities.
The company has faced numerous allegations and lawsuits claiming abuse, neglect and substandard care at Geo detention facilities.
Venturella, a career immigration enforcement official, made millions after moving to GEO-operated, where he worked as an executive from 2012 to 2023 and as a paid consultant through Jan. 31, 2025.
ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons was reportedly hospitalized twice amid pressure from the Trump administration to increase deportations of illegal immigrants, according to a Politico report. (Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe and John Moore/Getty Images)
He started his career in 1986 at the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) and as acting director and assistant director of ICE’s Office of Detention and Removal Operations.
Sources said he is well liked within ICE and one source described him as “definitely on board with the mission and the mass deportation agenda,” though he does not support certain policies, including roving immigration patrols, that were being used during former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s tenure.
As Republicans attempt to push through a roughly $70 billion reconciliation package to fund ICE and CBP, Democrats are expected to make noise about Venturella’s prior stint with GEO, which has a history of complaints.
There will also likely be questions about Venturella’s past financial ties to GEO and potential conflicts, given reports that he has held a senior role in the ICE division that manages detention-center contracts that could go to his former employer. ICE has said Venturella has divested from GEO, has no financial ties to the company and has no role in reviewing, approving or recommending contracts.