By Michelle Hackman and Josh Dawsey
WASHINGTON—The acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Caleb Vitello, was removed from his post, administration officials and other people familiar with the matter said, amid frustration in the Trump administration that deportations haven’t accelerated faster.
The administration is shaking up the leadership at ICE and is soon expected to announce a new acting director, one of the administration officials said. Another administration official said the team at ICE would be expanded.
A spokeswoman for DHS said in a statement that Vitello is “actually being elevated so he is no longer in an administrative role, but is overseeing all field and enforcement operations: finding, arresting, and deporting illegal aliens.”
Vitello will remain at ICE and will head the office responsible for arrests and deportations.
Efforts to reach Vitello weren’t immediately successful.
President Trump hand-selected Vitello to lead ICE because, though he is a career government official, he worked closely with top Trump immigration officials in the first administration. His removal follows the ouster of two other top deportation officials at ICE earlier this month.
Top administration officials have been putting growing pressure on ICE to increase its daily arrests, even at one point telling individual field offices they were expected to hit daily targets of 75 arrests a day, or about 1,500 across the country. They have been casting around for solutions as daily arrests haven’t been hitting those targets.
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