Blitz Bureau
WASHINGTON: Many of Presidentelect Donald Trump’s picks for his Cabinet and other high-level posts have been outsiders, often with Fox News appearances as key qualifications.
But to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency expected to execute what is touted as one of his administration’s signature policies, the mass deportation of millions of immigrants, Trump went a different route, tapping Caleb Vitello, who has decades of experience with the agency, NBC News reported.
That experience, it said, will most likely help Vitello implement Trump’s deportation policies quickly. So, too, will Trump’s decision to name him as ‘Acting’ Director, meaning he won’t have to wait for Senate confirmation to start aggressive removal efforts, the report said further.
Vitello “grew up in the Enforcement and Removal Operations division” of ICE, a current official said. With more than 20 years of experience at ICE, he’s intimately familiar with how it hunts fugitives, the official added. That expertise will be needed, because more than 400,000 immigrants with criminal convictions are on the agency’s non-detained docket, meaning they came into the US and have pending immigration proceedings but aren’t in detention, according to ICE.
Jason Houser, who was chief of staff at ICE during the Biden administration until early 2023, called Vitello a thoughtful, good leader. “He knows the complexities and challenges of a broken immigration system,” Houser said. Multiple agency insiders expressed relief that an ICE veteran was chosen. “He’s very even-keeled. I honestly I can’t think of a single thing that [is] controversial about him. I don’t want to call him a Boy Scout, but he’s as close as it gets,” said Corey Price, former Acting Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations.
ICE’s 20,000 agents in 400 offices will be in charge of the entire removal process, including searching for immigrants in the country illegally, detaining them in ICE facilities, taking them to staging areas in the Southern US and overseeing ICE-chartered flights out of the country.
