DHS Names New ICE Deputy Director

Former Deputy Director Madison Sheahan served in the role for a year before resigning this week.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents confront protestors in front of the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on Jan. 12, 2026. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced attorney Charles Wall will serve as the new deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a news release issued on Thursday.

“For the last year, Mr. Wall served as ICE’s Principal Legal Advisor, playing a key role in helping us deliver historic results in arresting and removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from American neighborhoods,” Noem said in a statement.

Noem said Wall was a “forward leaning, strategic thinker” who understood the importance of prioritizing the removal of “murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists from our country.”

“I look forward to working with him in his new role to make America safe again,” she said.

Wall previously supervised more than 2,000 attorneys and staff representing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in removal proceedings and provided legal advice and counsel to the agency’s senior officials and workforce, according to his staff profile.

Wall started his career in New Orleans, where he worked in Homeland Security investigations. He has also served as a prosecutor and senior assistant district attorney. He earned a law degree from Tulane Law School.

Former Deputy Director Madison Sheahan served in the role for a year before resigning this week. She announced her candidacy for Congress in her home state of Ohio on Thursday on social media.

ICE’s leadership change comes at a critical time as the agency pursues a massive enforcement operation in Minnesota.

“We’ve arrested over 2,500 criminal illegal aliens in Minnesota since starting this operation with DHS,” ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement Wednesday.

Charles Wall was appointed as Deputy Director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Jan. 15, 2026. U.S. DHS

“We’re picking up the worst of the worst offenders, and as these cases come in, we’re finding that a significant number of the aliens we arrest—in addition to having serious criminal histories in the U.S. and abroad—are part of dangerous gangs that terrorize communities all over the nation.”

Noem said on Thursday the Trump administration had “no plans” to pull ICE agents from Minnesota following days of protest and unrest.

President Donald Trump also said on Truth Social he would invoke the Insurrection Act if attacks against immigration agents didn’t end.

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the Insurrection Act, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote.

The 1792 Insurrection Act grants the president to authority to deploy the military domestically to suppress insurrections and domestic violence, or enforce federal law when state authorities are unable or unwilling to do so. President George H.W. Bush last used the act in 1992 to send federal troops to Los Angeles to quell riots following the Rodney King verdict.