David Venturella, a former executive at a private prison company, is set to take over as acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Trump administration said, as ICE’s current leader prepares to step down at the end of the month. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said late Tuesday that Venturella would succeed Todd Lyons, who has led the agency through much of the administration’s immigration crackdown, while ICE did not immediately respond to an email seeking additional information Wednesday.
Venturella most recently has been working at ICE on the division that oversees detention contracts, and lawmakers described his role there in a public letter earlier this year. The lawmakers’ letter said Venturella left Geo Group in early 2023, after holding multiple roles at the company, including executive vice president overseeing corporate development, and that he had previously overseen removal operations for ICE in 2011 and 2012 after work for federal contractors.
The administration’s personnel decision places Venturella at ICE during a period when raids and enforcement actions have generated sharp public reactions, including clashes between protesters and law enforcement and deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year. Federal officials announced Lyons’ departure last month, and ICE has received major funding from Congress to carry out the administration’s mass deportation campaign.
The leadership shift also connects to concerns about the “revolving door” between private detention contractors and the government agencies that oversee immigration enforcement. To Silky Shah, executive director of the Detention Watch Network, said Venturella’s appointment was a “classic example of the revolving door phenomena,” adding that Venturella’s “intimate knowledge of ICE will likely yield another spike of ICE detention facility openings.”
Venturella’s move comes as DHS pursues and revises detention expansion plans that have drawn legal challenges and community backlash. The administration previously developed a program to convert warehouses into immigrant detention, a concept that, according to the report, originated while Kristi Noem led DHS and that has encountered multiple lawsuits in addition to opposition in Republican-led states. The plan would increase detention capacity to 92,000 beds, including acquiring eight large-scale facilities capable of housing 7,000 to 10,000 detainees each and 16 smaller regional processing centers, with sites previously targeted to be running by the end of November.
After Noem’s departure, DHS paused purchases of new warehouses while it scrutinizes contracts signed during her tenure, and a judge extended a stoppage involving a large Maryland warehouse that was to be transformed into a processing facility. On Wednesday, DHS’s Office of Inspector General confirmed in an email that it is conducting an audit of the warehouse purchases, and the department said it was “committed to full transparency” and would “not interfere with the ongoing investigation.”
The report also pointed to Geo Group’s potential incentives if warehouse conversions stall, noting Geo has beds available at company-owned facilities. In recent earnings commentary, Geo’s chief George Zoley said Geo had benefited from the administration’s approach and described last year as the most successful period for new business wins in the company’s history, and he said Geo had about 6,000 idle beds at six company-owned facilities earlier this month. Venturella’s appointment, meanwhile, is tied to Geo’s scale in detention contracting, where the company owns and operates 23 ICE detention facilities with about 26,000 available beds.