ICE Chief to Testify as Lawmakers Press for Answers on Tactics

Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Todd Lyons will make a high-stakes appearance on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers press him on an aggressive arrest-and-deportation campaign that has sparked deadly confrontations in Minnesota and legal challenges nationwide.

Lyons, a relatively low-profile figure in President Donald Trump’s immigration push, will testify Tuesday before the House Homeland Security Committee as ICE faces mounting scrutiny over its enforcement tactics, transparency, and due process. Congress remains deadlocked over whether to impose new guardrails on the agency through the Department of Homeland Security’s funding bill.

House Homeland Security Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) previewed a tough line of questioning following the deaths last month of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis during encounters involving ICE and Border Patrol officers.

“Questions need to be answered, specifically about training, as well as use of force,” Garbarino said last week on SiriusXM’s Julie Mason Show.

Democrats have stalled DHS’s annual funding bill—which includes ICE—in an effort to extract enforcement concessions, with the department’s funding set to lapse this weekend absent a deal. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott and US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow are scheduled to testify alongside Lyons.

His testimony also comes as ICE implements a sweeping funding boost from the Republican tax and spending bill Trump signed into law last year. The package provides roughly $75 billion in multi-year funding for the agency on top of its annual budget around $10 billion.

The money is being used to expand detention capacity, hiring, and enforcement operations, placing Lyons at the helm of the agency as it carries out the largest infusion of resources in ICE’s history. The agency has more than 27,000 employees.

Before taking the top post, Lyons led ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, managing arrests, detention, and deportations nationwide, and previously held senior field leadership roles in Boston and Dallas, according to ICE’s website.

He joined ICE in 2007 after serving in the US Air Force, including overseas deployments and counterterrorism work following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. After years in field operations, Lyons rose quickly through DHS headquarters to become ICE’s acting director.

Despite his long tenure, former officials say Lyons has largely operated behind the scenes while figures such as former Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and border czar Tom Homan have served as the public faces of Trump’s immigration agenda. Now, they say, Lyons may be tested not only on his command of the agency, but on how much authority he actually wields.

“In this administration, titles don’t matter,” said Elliot Williams, a former ICE official during Barack Obama’s administration, who questioned how much influence Lyons has within the department.

Others cautioned the hearing may reveal little about who is truly setting policy.

Darius Reeves, a former ICE field office director who worked alongside Lyons in Dallas, described him as a seasoned enforcement official but said expectations should be tempered.

“Todd is a deportation officer—a career professional,” Reeves said. “His questions are going to be pre-answered.”

Lyons was relatively unknown within the department before his rapid ascent to one of ICE’s top leadership roles, two former DHS officials said. One questioned whether Lyons is actually shaping policy or simply executing decisions others make.

Still, Lyons has faced blowback over ICE policies over the past year. He signed a May 2025 internal memorandum authorizing ICE officers to enter a person’s home to make a civil immigration arrest using only an administrative warrant, a move critics say sidesteps Fourth Amendment protections. He also faced the threat of contempt proceedings from a Minnesota federal judge over ICE’s detention policies.

Trump hasn’t nominated anyone for the permanent ICE director role, and the agency—frequently at the center of political and legal battles over immigration enforcement—hasn’t had a Senate-confirmed director since the Obama administration. Former officials say that leadership gap has further complicated questions about where decisionmaking power resides within DHS.

DHS provided a link to Lyons’ official biography when asked for comment, and didn’t respond to follow-up questions.