Trump Nominates 29-Year Veteran Lance Schroyer to Lead 22,000-Person ICE

Q: As private prison profits surge, will the new ICE director reform the controversial $1-a-day detainee work program?

There is no public evidence that Lance Schroyer plans to reform ICE’s detainee work program, and the recent direction of policy points the other way. Trump has nominated Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper and Marine, to lead ICE, but the available information says nothing about his position on the agency’s “Voluntary Work Program,” under which detainees in private facilities often receive $1 a day for cleaning, cooking, and maintenance. That leaves no factual basis to predict reform from his nomination alone. What is clear is that ICE recently issued detention standards that preserve the program’s $1-a-day framework, even as private prison profits have surged. GEO Group’s profit rose from about $32 million in 2024 to more than $254 million in 2025, and CoreCivic also posted major gains tied to expanded ICE detention contracts. Critics say the low-pay labor system is central to that business model. The program is under growing legal pressure. Courts have allowed major wage-theft and forced-labor cases to proceed, and GEO has already been hit with multimillion-dollar judgments in Washington state. Civil-rights advocates and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights have called for detainees to receive fairer wages. Whether reform happens will depend less on Schroyer’s résumé than on whether he breaks with current ICE policy and contractor interests. So far, the evidence suggests continuity, not change.

3 articles · Updated · CNN · Jun 27

Lance Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper and Marine now advising DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, was tapped by Trump to run ICE and would inherit a 22,000-person agency with a multibillion-dollar budget.
29 years of law-enforcement experience and Schroyer’s work linking federal immigration authorities with local police under the 287(g) program drove the pick, which surprised some ICE officials because he has not worked inside the agency.
David Venturella is expected to remain acting director until Senate confirmation, extending ICE’s run without a Senate-confirmed leader since the Obama administration.
The nomination lands after a turbulent year for ICE and DHS, including Todd Lyons’ spring exit and scrutiny over ramped-up arrests and the January fatal shootings of two US citizens by federal agents.
Mullin, who took over DHS in March after Trump fired Kristi Noem, is trying to steady an embattled department while keeping Trump’s deportation crackdown aggressive but, in his words, "quiet."