Acting ICE Director Announces He’s Fleeing His Sinking Ship

Isn’t it incredible how often the leaders of incredibly unpopular agencies of the Trump administration rediscover their desire to “spend more time with family,” right around when public opinion regarding their agency is at its lowest? Truly it is a fortuitous coincidence that the right moment to “step away” so often coincides with being publicly associated with a group committing constant atrocities. In the case of acting ICE director Todd Lyons, however, who announced this week that he’s resigning from the position in May, it sounds like the boilerplate family excuse is really just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, it sounds more like this man was lucky to physically survive a year of working under Stephen Miller’s reptilian gaze, and is now fleeing the spiraling agency as it comes under ever more scrutiny and the threat of legal reprisals. Or as Lyons put it, after the usual pablum about spending more time with his sons, “Serving alongside you has been one of the greatest honors of my life. I have watched you put in long hours, make difficult decisions, and make personal sacrifices, and I’m profoundly grateful for all of it.” He then somehow forgot to add, “See ya, suckers.”

Todd Lyons was the latest in a long string of “acting” directors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, given that the agency hasn’t actually had a Senate-confirmed leader since the last Obama administration. Despite this, he was never really the most publicly visible of the symbols of the second Trump administration’s deportation machine–more of the public statements have been left to gleeful propagandists like current DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis, or the superior duplicity of the dearly departed Tricia McLaughlin, who made lying for pay an art form. That doesn’t mean Lyons’ gig was easy, though—rather, he was apparently the person being grilled point blank on a daily basis why this person or that family hadn’t been detained by ICE yet, and why the campaign of deportations hadn’t yet reached the heights of brutality that the likes of Trump and Stephen Miller wanted to see. It sounds like quite a plum role for any fascism-friendly civil servant to aspire toward.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons is resigning.

This comes after a contentious congressional hearing on the record number of detainee deaths in ICE detention centers.

[image or embed]

— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) Apr 17, 2026 at 10:41 AM

In the case of Lyons, it also sounds like he endured plenty of (well earned) suffering, mostly at the hands of Miller. He was reportedly hospitalized on not just one but multiple occasions over the past year for “stress-related issues,” according to sources speaking to Politico. There are some truly whopper passages here, including the following incident that sounds truly apoplectic: “In a separate incident in Los Angeles over the summer, Lyons became so distressed when ICE agents couldn’t locate a migrant on their target list after a ride along with top administration officials that one of his bodyguards took a portable defibrillator from a nearby government office to Lyons in case he needed medical intervention, according to one current and one former official.”

This man’s staff was literally afraid that he was going to drop dead at any moment. Lyons is described in the same piece as being constantly red and in a “full sweat,” subject to daily morning phone calls and beratements from Miller, who wanted ever more aggressive ICE operations to carry out his own vision of white nationalist exceptionalism. Is it any wonder that Lyons was desperately scanning for the exit?

Amusingly, among the commenters on Lyons’ retreat is Miller himself, the man’s own bully, now with nothing but great things to say. And as we all know, if Stephen Miller has good things to say about you, then you must be a piece of garbage. As Miller put it, Lyons “is 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.”

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has been hospitalized twice since September for stress-related issues, current and former officials say. Sources attribute his declining health to intense pressure from the White House and advisor Stephen Miller to increase deportations amid agency infighting.

[image or embed]

— Flingjore (@flingjore.com) Mar 27, 2026 at 11:12 PM

Lyons has often portrayed himself, meanwhile, as something akin to an artist suffering for the glory of his work in brutalizing immigrants. In response to questions about his reported “stress” hospitalizations, Lyons said the following: “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.” He would quit the job in question two weeks after making that statement.

In terms of timing, it’s not hard to see why Lyons would assess that now is the time to get as far away from ICE as possible. Trotting behind then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem like an obedient terrier, he refused to acknowledge in Congressional testimony that slain Minnesota residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti were not “domestic terrorists,” even when pressed to give his own opinion. Meanwhile, the state of Minnesota in particular is working hard to circumvent the broad protections of the Constitution’s supremacy clause in bringing accountability (and even criminal charges) against ICE agents who operated there this winter during “Operation Metro Surge” in the Twin Cities. While Hennepin County is suing the Trump administration for access to evidence in the killings of Good and Pretti, another neighboring county is formally investigating ICE agents who marched a senior American citizen out in to the cold in his underwear while arresting him. And just today, an arrest warrant was issued for several other ICE agents who have been charged with assault in another road rage incident in Minnesota. Public support for the agency is collapsing even in the center and right wing, which makes this a great time for someone like Todd Lyons to nope the fuck out of there and hand the whole mess to some other poor sap. Notably, no new “acting” director has yet been named.

Todd Lyons led a secret police force for Trump where masked agents attacked our own American streets, violated Constitutional rights, and shot our own citizens.

We’ll hold you accountable too.

[image or embed]

— Governor JB Pritzker (@govpritzker.illinois.gov) Apr 16, 2026 at 9:25 PM

Todd Lyons is in some respects a pitiable figure, an Air Force veteran and ICE lifer who clearly burned out under the intense demands of ghouls like Trump and Stephen Miller. But sympathy, or even pity for the man is likely to be limited, given that he also presided over ICE during such highlights as record-breaking detainee deaths, mass incarceration and the suspension of constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties through the argument that ICE could use administrative rather than judicial warrants to enter anyone’s home. He leaves behind an agency that is more hated than it’s ever been, and more than anything else should be remembered for his callousness in demanding that Americans turn over the immigrants the government wishes to oppress. Or as he put it: “Just turn them over to us in a safe, secure environment, and you wouldn’t have to have us going out and arresting these folks.”

Have a fun retirement, Todd. Maybe when your sons come of age, they’ll ask what it was like to lick the boots of some of the worst people in American history.