Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency known as ICE, lies at the core of President Donald Trump’s campaign to tackle crime and illegal immigration, as he continues to test the limits of executive power.
The man at the helm of the agency is Todd Lyons, the acting director. In that role he oversees more than 20,000 employees, many of whom are charged with overseeing criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws. In an interview with the Monitor at headquarters Tuesday, he discussed recent news events and agency goals, along with mounting legal and humanitarian concerns over ICE tactics. He also said sending more immigrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison “could be a possibility.”
That’s where the administration sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the government wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March. After Mr. Abrego Garcia was recently released from criminal custody tied to human smuggling charges, ICE detained Mr. Abrego Garcia at a Maryland check-in this week and seeks to deport him again. A federal district judge has temporarily barred his removal until she can hold a hearing to confirm the government is following the law.
Why We Wrote This
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement got a $75 billion budget boost from Congress and plays a key role in President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign. The Monitor interviewed Acting Director Todd Lyons about the agency’s current role and the criticism it faces.
Mr. Lyons also spoke about the new collaboration between ICE and the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., at the same time as Mr. Trump’s controversial surge of National Guard troops to the nation’s capital.
How much ICE has contributed to the administration’s goal of 1 million deportations a year is unclear. The agency hasn’t published monthly removals data so far, though Mr. Lyons says that numbers are coming. As of the administration’s first 100 days, ICE said it removed 65,682 noncitizens. Last fiscal year, President Joe Biden oversaw 271,484 ICE removals.
While a historic influx of funding sets ICE “up for success,” said the agency head, he sees legal challenges as an ongoing hurdle. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Director Lyons, you’ve been at ICE for nearly two decades. How important is public trust to ICE’s mission?
It has to be key. I think, really, what we want people to understand is the actual true mission of what ICE does. A lot of times, even under previous administrations, ICE was always on the defensive, but no one ever really looked at what ICE’s true public safety law enforcement mission is. And I think sometimes that gets caught up in the political rhetoric – that ICE gets used as a political football a lot, and not seen for the public safety value that it does for the communities.
What can ICE do to earn more public trust?
I think, honestly, the more transparent we are with who we’re arresting. Our public affairs here at the department, and our social media teams, have done a really great job of highlighting the worst of the worst of people that we are going after. I just think the problem is a lot of times in the media. They don’t focus on the good work we’re doing.
ICE has its critics, those who are concerned with masking of officers, courthouse arrests, smashing of car windows. Even if you disagree with them, can you still empathize with their concerns around transparency, due process, aggression?
I can. But I think ICE would love to have more support from elected officials to hold those individuals accountable that threaten, doxx, assault ICE agents. Not only ICE agents – whether it be special agents or deportation officers – but any federal law enforcement officer. So they didn’t have to have masks on, they didn’t have to hide their identity. Instead of having fiery rhetoric or comments about the mission at ICE, we need the support that elected officials will hold individuals accountable that want to put law enforcement officers in harm’s way.
There have been serious allegations of attacks against ICE personnel, including at the Prairieland detention center, resulting in charges against 10 people. How have attacks changed ICE’s operations on the ground?
Especially in sanctuary jurisdictions, where we don’t have law enforcement agencies that cooperate with us, where we have to go out in the communities and arrest these criminal aliens that have been released from local custody, instead of sending the normal four to five officers to go make the arrest on the street, we now have to double that number, because the arrest teams actually have to have security for what they’re doing.
To address news around Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national wrongfully deported in March: Can you confirm where he is right now?
Yep, he’s being held in Virginia.
Where in Virginia?
Farmville Detention Center.
And the government still plans to deport him to Uganda?
Well, I’m not going to go as far as his location, but the government still plans to effect that final order of deportation. He has a lawful order of deportation from an immigration judge, from the Department of Justice. And he does have the withholding – he’s not going to be returned to El Salvador – but we are going to return him to a safe third country. So when the temporary restraining order is lifted by the judge, we’re gonna go ahead and effect that final order of removal.
But you’re saying you can’t confirm that that will be to Uganda?
Yeah, at this time, I’m not going to confirm that.
In your view, should immigrants get to resolve criminal legal cases against them here in the U.S. before getting deported?
There are mechanisms in place for local and state jurisdictions to have those individuals stay, remain in their custody, to see the continuation or the furtherance of their criminal cases. But when local jurisdictions go ahead and release them back into the community – and they have, in this case, a final order of removal and are a criminal alien and a gang member – ICE can’t put public safety at risk. We have to effect that order.
What is the main takeaway you want to leave with the American public about the government’s pursuit of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s deportation?
He was lawfully ordered deported by an immigration judge. We just can’t ignore that. He’s also a known gang member, which we can’t ignore as well. ICE’s mission is to remove criminal aliens, and that’s what we’re gonna do.
And of course, Mr. Abrego Garcia and his legal team dispute the MS-13 affiliation, but I understand the government’s position on that. Since March, has ICE sent any more immigrants to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador? And do you all plan to in the future?
We haven’t, but, as far as plans in the future … I can’t speak to what the future is gonna be for that.
So it’s a possibility?
Yeah, it could be a possibility.
ICE is getting $45 billion for detention, nearly $30 billion for hiring, training, and other costs through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Are there any remaining barriers to ICE’s operations that this historic funding influx doesn’t address?
We’re set up for success, but what I would say is there’s always going to be some type of barriers, whether it be legal, whether it be court rulings, things like that. But we’re prepared in our manpower, staffing, and our resources to ensure that we’re meeting the secretary’s goals and ensuring that we’re meeting President Trump’s administration and his vision of ICE and what he wants for public safety, and that’s what we’re focused on.
In May, White House adviser Stephen Miller said that the administration was “looking to set” a minimum goal of 3,000 daily arrests. Then in a court filing, the Justice Department said last month that “no such goal has been set as a matter of policy.” To set the record straight: Does ICE have a goal of arresting 3,000 immigrants daily?
No. We don’t operate on quotas. We never have. We can’t do law enforcement that way. Especially when you’re focused on the worst of the worst. You know, any type of leader, any type of executive, will set goals for their people, but it’s not a mandate that we’re set on.
The administration continues to tout its arrests of the “worst of the worst” via ICE and Department of Homeland Security social media accounts. But then Americans are also seeing the arrests of moped drivers in Washington, D.C. What’s important for Americans to understand about how you’re prioritizing the “worst of the worst” while seemingly treating everyone unlawfully here as fair game for arrest?
I always give the example of a city law enforcement environment. In a traffic stop, the driver is wanted. They arrest the driver, but they identify the passenger in the vehicle. And while that passenger might only have a civil warrant or a civil ticket violation, that local police department isn’t going to turn a blind eye to that. And that’s how ICE is. If we’re out there working with our partners and they encounter someone that’s here illegally, we’re gonna take action.
Specifically, how are those operations taking place in Washington, D.C.? Do you have ICE personnel riding in the same vehicles with the police department?
We have special agents and deportation officers with all the federal – all the partners here that are working on the Make D.C. Safe Again initiative.
Like in the same vehicles, riding along?
In some cases. In some cases, just working together, jointly in task forces.
How many arrests in D.C. has ICE made since Aug. 11?
As of today [Aug. 26], 478.
What primarily have been those arrests predicated on?
So I would say the majority of them have been cases where we worked with our federal partners, that they were people that we were looking for, that had been previously released from custody.
What is ICE’s endgame? At the end of President Trump’s second term, how will you measure the agency’s success?
You know one big thing that is really lost in a lot of what we do is the fact that a lot of these criminal aliens prey upon … other illegal immigrants that have come here for a better life. You have many people that escape crime, persecution from other countries.
We want to ensure that ICE’s public safety mission’s upheld, that we are seen as a dedicated law enforcement agency that’s making a difference in the communities. That’s how I gauge it.
