Todd Lyons

Quick facts

A career immigration-enforcement officer and South Boston native, Todd Lyons served as Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from March 9, 2025 until his resignation at the end of May 2026, leading the agency that executed the Trump administration’s mass-deportation campaign. He rose through ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) over nearly two decades before taking the top job.

Key positions

Biography

Todd Lyons was appointed Acting ICE Director on March 9, 2025 by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, succeeding Caleb Vitello, who was reassigned after less than two months. Lyons had been described as a “favorite” for the directorship before Vitello’s initial selection. Raised Catholic in South Boston — he “attended Gate of Heaven Catholic Church in Southie as a kid,” per the Boston Globe (March 30, 2026) — and educated at the Jesuit Boston College High School, he came up entirely inside enforcement, joining ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in Dallas in 2007 and running the New England field office from 2017 to 2024 before his rapid 2024–2025 ascent to the agency’s top job.

As Acting Director, Lyons led the operational execution of the administration’s deportation campaign: a 3,000-daily-arrest quota set by directive in May 2025, a reported 627% increase in arrests over the Biden administration, and more than 65,000 arrests in the first 100 days. His public framing of the mission was consistently legalist and logistical rather than moral. He told the Border Security Expo in Phoenix (2025) that deportation should run “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings” (reported by The New Republic and Rolling Stone), and told the Boston Globe, “The law is the law.” Asked about pursuing people into hospitals or churches, he said, “Nothing’s off the table when it comes to that” (CBS News, 2026).

Lyons led the agency during the deaths of three men at Camp East Montana (Fort Bliss), the country’s largest detention facility, between December 3, 2025 and January 14, 2026. A coalition of human rights organizations had sent ICE a detailed warning letter on December 8, 2025 — citing 45+ detainee interviews and 16 signed declarations documenting beatings, sexual abuse and medical neglect — warning that additional deaths were imminent; two more men died within weeks. The second death (Geraldo Lunas Campos, Jan 3) was ruled a homicide by the El Paso County Medical Examiner; the third body was routed to William Beaumont Army Medical Center, which does not release autopsy reports publicly. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) wrote to Lyons and Noem on December 19, 2025 about “continued concerns regarding Camp East Montana.”

At a February 10, 2026 House Homeland Security Committee oversight hearing, Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) asked Lyons whether he considered himself a religious man; he answered, “Yes, ma’am.” Asked, “Do you think you’re going to hell, Mr. Lyons?” he replied, “I’m not gonna entertain that question, ma’am.” Asked by Rep. Eric Swalwell to resign, he said, “No, sir, I won’t.” Lyons nonetheless announced in mid-April 2026 (Washington Post, NPR) that he would step down at the end of May 2026, roughly a year into the campaign.

Sources

• Congress.gov: Todd M. Lyons Biography — military and law-enforcement career, positions
• HSToday: Secretary Noem Selects Todd Lyons as New Acting ICE Director — appointment, prior ERO roles
• Boston Globe: Who is Todd Lyons, head of ICE for the Trump administration? — South Boston upbringing, Catholic background, “the law is the law” (March 30, 2026)
• The New Republic: ICE Chief Suggests Copying Amazon Prime for Mass Deportations — “like Prime, but with human beings,” Border Security Expo Phoenix (2025)
• TPM: ‘Do You Think You’re Going to Hell, Mr. Lyons?’ — Feb 10, 2026 hearing exchange
• Washington Post: Acting ICE chief Todd Lyons resigns — resignation effective end of May 2026 (April 16, 2026)