The longtime DHS adviser is expected to help the agency cut through the red tape of domestic birth certificates and constitutional rights.
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday he will nominate Lance Schroyer to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement, tasking the political operative with guiding the agency through the unprecedented logistical complexities of deporting natural-born U.S. citizens.
Schroyer, who currently serves as a senior adviser to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, is expected to pivot the agency away from its traditional focus on border crossers and toward the more ambitious goal of expelling individuals who possess valid domestic birth records. According to a transition memo circulated among the Republican caucus, Schroyer’s primary mandate will be to streamline ICE's "cumbersome and litigious" habit of confirming a suspect's legal status before initiating a tactical raid.
Sources close to the administration indicated on background that Schroyer earned the nomination after impressing White House officials with a white paper arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment was "more of a guideline than a binding geographic reality." In his role advising Mullin, Schroyer reportedly spearheaded a pilot program that allowed field agents to bypass federal databases and instead determine citizenship based entirely on whether a suspect looked like they belonged in a targeted neighborhood.
The previous administration crippled this agency by insisting agents verify citizenship before making an apprehension, which creates massive operational bottlenecks.
Lance understands that if we wait around to check everyone's passport, we’re never going to hit our quarterly enforcement quotas. Sometimes you just have to load up the vans and let the appellate courts sort out who was actually born in Ohio.
If confirmed by the Senate, Schroyer will oversee a proposed $14 billion budget increase, a significant portion of which is earmarked for expanding the agency's "acceptable collateral deportations" fund to settle anticipated lawsuits from suburban residents accidentally dropped off in Guatemala.