The Trump administration is reassigning the acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director, Caleb Vitello, to other duties, a spokesperson confirmed on Friday.
“He is no longer in an administrative role, but is overseeing all field and enforcement operations: finding, arresting, and deporting illegal aliens, which is a major priority of the President and Secretary [Kristi] Noem,” a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told The Epoch Times in a statement.
No other details were provided. The spokesperson was responding to a question about whether Vitello was reassigned from his duties as acting ICE director.
Vitello’s reassignment comes after President Donald Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan, expressed public frustration that the number of ICE arrests and deportations isn’t high enough. Homan also has said he’s concerned about leaks about possible ICE enforcement activity to media outlets.
The DHS spokesperson did not say who would be leading ICE after Vitello’s reassignment.
When Trump named Vitello to be his acting ICE director, he noted on social media Vitello has more than 23 years of experience in ICE. Previously, Vitello had served as the assistant director of ICE’s Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs.
“Caleb’s exceptional leadership, extensive experience, and commitment to ICE’s mission make him an excellent choice to implement my efforts to enhance the safety and security of American communities who have been victimized by illegal alien crime,” Trump said of Vitello last year in a Truth Social post.
During his presidential campaign, Trump said deportations of illegal immigrants would be one of his priorities if he were elected.
Immediately after he took office, Trump signed a range of orders bolstering security on the U.S.–Mexico border and has ramped up efforts to deport illegal immigrants.
The executive orders include one that designates Mexican cartels and two transnational gangs as global terrorist organizations, declaring a national emergency at the southern border, ending birthright citizenship, and more.
While ICE officials had been posting updates about immigration-related arrests and detainments on a daily basis on the X social media platform at the start of Trump’s administration, a review of ICE’s account shows that it stopped delivering those updates on Jan. 31.
In recent days, the Trump administration has provided limited information about how many people in the country illegally have been arrested or detained by ICE.
ICE and its Enforcement and Removal Operations division is the primary law enforcement agency that is tasked with carrying out Trump’s proposed deportations of illegal immigrants.
When ICE released daily updates on arrests, they were averaging out to 787 arrests a day, compared to a daily average of 311 during a 12-month period that ended Sept. 30 during President Joe Biden’s administration.
Last week, the White House said in a video that ICE had arrested 11,000 criminals over 18 days. That averages out to about 611 arrests per day.
