A senior official with Border Patrol, Ronald D. Vitiello, will become the new acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Trump administration declared on Saturday, even as some politicians and activists want to see the agency disbanded.
Vitiello is currently serving as Custom and Border Protection’s acting deputy commissioner and has in the past been the chief of Border Patrol. Vitiello will replace Thomas Homan, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s current acting head, who retired in June. A full-time ICE director needs to be approved by the Senate, and Vitiello is now seen as the primary candidate for that approval. Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, says she is pleased that the agency will again be led by a law enforcement officer who is so well respected and experienced and who will be a strong advocate for the workforce in the agency.
The elevation of Vitiello to head of the agency comes at a critical point, as protestors rally in front of ICE’s national headquarters and its regional offices across the US, and several Democrats have called for the abolishment of the agency.
The agency has been heavily criticized for arresting undocumented immigrants who were dropping their kids off at school and for taking into detention and even deporting, people arrested for minor offenses.
