Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is leaving the agency at the end of May, closing out a turbulent tenure marked by aggressive enforcement operations, reported hospitalizations, and friction with other senior officials over how to run the immigration crackdown.
Newly appointed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed the departure to the Daily Mail, stating that May 31 will be Lyons' last official day. CBS News first reported Thursday that Lyons had told colleagues he planned to leave in June, citing two U.S. officials familiar with his plans. Officials told CBS News that Lyons intended to step down to spend more time with his family, including his sons, in Massachusetts.
Mullin praised the outgoing director in a statement:
"Director Lyons has been a great leader of ICE and key player in helping the Trump administration remove murderers, rapists, pedophiles, terrorists, and gang members from American communities. He jumpstarted an agency that had not been allowed to do its job for four years. Thanks to his leadership, American communities are safer."
Mullin wished Lyons well in his next opportunity in the private sector. The Senate confirmed Mullin as DHS secretary last month.
Lyons first joined ICE in 2007 as an agent in Dallas. He rose to the number two position at that field office, then became field office director of ICE's Boston region, which covers all of New England. He later served as assistant director for field operations of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations before taking the acting director role.
His tenure atop the agency coincided with the most aggressive federal immigration enforcement campaign in years. Lyons pushed for operations to specifically target those with criminal histories, mounted an effort to recruit and hire thousands of additional deportation agents, and signed a May 2025 memo authorizing ICE agents to forcibly enter homes without a judicial warrant during certain operations.
That pace came at a personal cost. Politico previously reported that Lyons was hospitalized at least twice for stress. In September, he was hospitalized for at least one night, according to three officials cited by Politico. In December, his security detail drove him to a hospital in Washington, D.C., where he was admitted overnight, according to one former and two current officials cited by the same outlet.
In a separate incident in Los Angeles over the summer, Lyons reportedly became distressed during a ride-along with top administration officials after ICE agents could not locate a migrant on their target list. The pattern of incidents raised questions about the toll the job was taking, questions Lyons addressed directly.
Lyons told Politico:
"Since the beginning of this administration, I have worked night and day, all day, every day to undo the harms Joe Biden has caused to the American people. Any stress is in no way related to pressure from the White House, and nothing will get in the way of me doing my job."
Lyons' departure fits a broader pattern of high-level administration exits that have reshaped the Trump team's enforcement apparatus in recent months.
Behind the public statements of gratitude, Lyons' time as acting director was not without internal conflict. He disagreed with former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's efforts to elevate Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino and task him with conducting roundups in major cities. Bovino was eventually relieved from his position, a resolution that appeared to vindicate Lyons' stance, though the clash illustrated real tensions over how enforcement operations should be structured and who should lead them.
Some officials told Politico that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller had yelled at Lyons during morning phone calls with administration officials. Others denied that characterization, with one official saying Miller was just "passionate." The competing accounts underscore how high the internal temperature ran during a period when the administration was pushing ICE harder than the agency had been pushed in years.
Miller, for his part, offered unqualified praise for the departing director, calling Lyons a "phenomenal patriot and dedicated leader who has been at the center of President Trump's historic efforts to secure our homeland and reverse the Democrats' sinister border invasion."
The Trump administration has maintained that its crackdown is necessary to improve domestic security and curb illegal immigration, a position Lyons championed publicly throughout his tenure.
Lyons testified before Congress earlier this year and backed his agents' tactics, even as the agency faced mounting political opposition. The deaths of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good sparked nationwide protests, and Lyons defended his agents' conduct in both cases. He accused elected officials and protesters of escalating rhetoric, warning them directly.
In one public statement, Lyons declared:
"Let me send a message to anyone who thinks they can intimidate us: You will fail."
That defiance won him admirers among rank-and-file agents and conservative supporters who had watched ICE be sidelined during the Biden years. But it also made him a target. Democrats in Congress have refused to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security until the Trump administration agrees to make certain reforms to its immigration crackdown, a standoff that has left the agency operating under political constraints even as it attempts to scale up.
Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act provided $75 million in funds to support Lyons' effort to recruit and hire thousands of additional deportation agents. Whether that hiring push survives his departure, and whether a successor can maintain the operational tempo Lyons established, remains an open question.
The administration has seen several significant personnel changes across its law enforcement and national security leadership in recent months, each reshuffling the chain of command at a moment when continuity matters.
Lyons' departure leaves ICE at a crossroads. The agency is in the middle of the largest enforcement expansion in its modern history, yet it faces a funding standoff with congressional Democrats, ongoing legal challenges to its operational authorities, and the logistical reality of trying to hire thousands of agents while its leadership turns over.
The May 2025 memo Lyons signed, authorizing agents to forcibly enter homes without a judicial warrant during certain operations, remains one of the most aggressive policy tools in the agency's current arsenal. How the next director interprets and enforces that authority will signal whether the administration's enforcement posture holds or softens.
Meanwhile, the broader security environment around the federal government continues to generate headlines. Incidents like reported gunfire near Lafayette Park serve as reminders of the volatile atmosphere in which these officials operate daily.
Mullin, as the newly confirmed DHS secretary, now owns the decision on who replaces Lyons. The choice will reveal whether the administration wants a continuity pick who keeps Lyons' aggressive posture intact or a different kind of leader who can navigate the congressional funding fight while keeping agents in the field.
Questions about ICE's resources and how they are allocated will only intensify as the agency enters its next chapter without the man who defined its current one.
Lyons ran ICE the way the administration wanted it run, hard, fast, and unapologetically. He paid for it with his health. The question now is whether anyone in Washington has the appetite to keep that pace, or whether the bureaucracy reverts to the comfortable drift that let enforcement wither for four years.
