Former private prison official to serve as acting ICE chief

People detained are seen at the the Desert View Annex at the the private prison company GEO Group Adelanto ICE Processing Center detention facility in Adelanto, Calif., in July 2025. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via hide caption toggle caption Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via David Venturella is expected to be the next acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to NPR on Tuesday. Venturella most recently worked for the department overseeing contracts between ICE and various detention facilities. He previously worked for ICE during the Obama and George W. Bush administrations. He left the agency in 2012 to work for Geo Group , a private prison company that contracts with the federal government, including for immigration detention. Venturella was at Geo Group for a little over a decade . The New York Times first reported news of his appointment. The Trump administration has rapidly scaled up its detention capacity and policies in the past year, even as deaths in detention hit their highest total since DHS was founded, following a sharp increase in the number of detainees. Venturella will take the position effective June 1 following the resignation of current acting Director Todd Lyons . The selection comes as new leaders at DHS, including Secretary Markwayne Mullin, want to shift away from controversial and headline-grabbing immigration enforcement surges in cities. …