Acting director of ICE Todd Lyons to step down in May

The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement would resign at the end of May, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said Thursday night. Lyons would move to an unspecified opportunity in the private sector, Mullin said. The DHS secretary did not say whether Lyons initiated the resignation or whether he was asked to step down. He also did not say who might fill the role as director of ICE. Lyons jumpstarted an agency that hadn’t been allowed to carry out its job for four years, and he removed criminals from American communities, Mullin wrote on social media.

The news came as a partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security stretched into its ninth week. Legislation to fund the department has repeatedly stalled in both the House and Senate, mostly over Democrats’ refusal to fund ICE.

Lyons’ departure, following the March exit of Mullin’s predecessor, Kristi Noem, could help pave the way for an agreement. Lyons on Thursday told the House Appropriations Committee that ICE needed the $5.4 billion earmarked for it in Republicans’ draft budget for basic functions, including oversight of its own operations. Since Jan. 20, ICE detained about 457,000 illegal immigrants, including 281,000 with criminal histories, he said at the hearing. About 570 people had been deported, he said. Forty-four people had died while in ICE custody since March 2025, he said. While that number was the highest in the agency’s history, it was due to a higher number of overall detainees, he said.

Dig deeper: Read Josh Schumacher’s report on the death of a Mexican man while in ICE custody.