Center

NEW YORK — A federal immigration court in Lower Manhattan has come to represent the Trump administration’s deportation campaign in New York City, with agents carrying out chaotic and sometimes violent arrests in the hallway as migrants leave hearings.

Now the court is serving as a front in a different kind of battle: one of the city’s most closely watched congressional races.

In the Democratic primary between incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman and former city Comptroller Brad Lander — for a district so solidly blue that the June primary is considered its deciding election — both candidates have made the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants at 26 Federal Plaza a feature of their campaigns, but with decidedly different approaches.

Goldman — an heir to the Levi Strauss denim fortune and former prosecutor who was lead counsel for President Trump’s first impeachment — has approached the topic with a lawyerly bent that leverages the power of his office.

He sued the administration to open immigration detention centers to members of Congress, conducts oversight visits and turned his office across the street into what he’s called a triage center that connects immigrants with advocacy groups and legal services that has, his campaign said, helped more than 30 people get released from federal custody.

After a recent visit, Goldman credited his oversight work as a reason conditions at a holding facility inside the building have improved.

“What you see from our multipronged approach is the way that I push back, which is not performative, but it is substantive,” he told the Associated Press outside 26 Federal Plaza after he toured the detention center that is closed to the public.

Meanwhile, Lander — a progressive city government stalwart who is running with the support of Mayor Zohran Mamdani — has acted as protester and court observer, watching hearings and attempting to accompany immigrants out of the building past masked federal agents.

His efforts have gotten him arrested twice, with the most recent case headed to a trial scheduled to take place just before the primary.

“I would characterize his oversight function as strongly worded letters,” Lander told AP when asked about Goldman’s approach. “And my oversight function is: Show up with hundreds of your neighbors and bear witness and accompany people and demand access and stay until they give it to you or they arrest you.”

Lander’s first arrest happened last year when he linked arms with a person authorities were attempting to detain in the hallway outside the court. Lander was running for mayor at the time, and the arrest gave his campaign a jolt of excitement at a time when Mamdani and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo were considered the front-runners in the race.

A few months later, after losing the mayoral primary but not long before launching his congressional campaign, Lander was arrested again during a large protest at the building and hit with a misdemeanor obstruction charge.

But instead of accepting a deal that would have made the case go away in six months, Lander instead opted to go to trial. He said the case would extract information about the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts at the building during a tense period that predates Goldman’s oversight visits.

Goldman dismissed Lander’s efforts as performative.

“I don’t understand why someone would reject a dismissal of a case so that he can have a public trial, ostensibly to ask for information that I could provide him whenever he wanted because I have the answers from doing my oversight,” he said.

This week, Lander returned to 26 Federal Plaza to sit in on hearings. But just before entering the building, his team got word that federal agents were lingering outside an immigration hearing at a different federal courtroom in a building across the street. He raced over and eventually found the agents, who were wearing masks and milling around in the court’s waiting room.

“The challenge is trying to figure out who they’re going to arrest,” Lander said, popping out of the hearing, where he sat in a back row and took notes. After a while, the agents walked away from the hearing room, down a hallway and exited the floor. It was not clear why they left.

“Maybe we have different styles,” Lander said of his opponent after the agents departed. He later went back across the street and filmed a campaign video in front of 26 Federal Plaza.

Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Environmental groups say that the timing of the expected closure of an immigration detention center in the middle of the Florida Everglades, likely in the next month or two, is no accident because it will come as their lawsuit challenging its existence returns to a federal judge who had previously ordered it shut down.

A federal appellate court decided last month to keep open the detention center nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” for the time being, blocking a lower court decision ordering it to wind down operations. But the case was sent back to the lower court judge who now gets jurisdiction over the lawsuit as the litigation over the facility’s fate continues.

“Knowing that the same district judge who previously enjoined the operation would soon reassume oversight — the defendants are now effectively waving the white flag,” said Paul Schwiep, an attorney for the environmental groups that had sued, saying the facility’s construction hadn’t undergone a required environmental review.

When asked about the future of the state-run facility and its costs on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that he hadn’t gotten any “official word” that federal authorities are going to stop sending detainees to the center.

But vendors who supply and help run the facility have been told that the closure could be as soon as next month, according to reports Tuesday by the New York Times and CBS News Miami. The Florida Department of Emergency Management, which operates the detention center, didn’t respond to an emailed inquiry on Wednesday. The Republican governor’s press secretary, Molly Best, referred questions about the facility to the state emergency management agency.

“We didn’t build any permanent facilities down there because we knew it was going to be temporary,” DeSantis said Wednesday at a news conference in Titusville, Fla.

DeSantis’ administration opened the facility in July to support the immigration crackdown by the administration of President Trump, who visited the detention center last summer. An attorney for two detainees has accused guards of severely beating and pepper-spraying detainees. Other detainees have said worms turn up in the food, toilets don’t flush and mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.

“This monument to cruelty, waste and environmental and tribal lands abuse should have never been built,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, said Tuesday.

Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity sued state and federal officials a short time after the facility opened, claiming the remote airstrip site in the Everglades wasn’t given a proper environmental review required by federal law before it was converted into an immigration detention center. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami agreed and ordered in August that the facility must wind down operations within two months.

The appellate court blocked the order, saying the Florida-run facility wasn’t under federal control and didn’t need to comply with federal law requiring an environmental impact review.

But the appellate court made clear that once Florida got federal reimbursement for the facility, it would have to comply with the federal environmental law, Schwiep said.

DeSantis said Tuesday that the state expected to be reimbursed by the federal government for $608 million, which has already been approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“There’s no negotiations on that,” he said.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

A NEW festival style experience is coming to Center Parcs this summer.

The Sherwood Forest retreat has revealed plans for its Forest Summer Social.

Starting this month, the Woodland Garden will be transformed into a huge attraction, with an outdoor cinema in the centre.

This will show everything from films like Mamma Mia and Frozen to live sports such as the World Cup and F1.

Guests will be able to prebook deckhairs and popcorn, or can turn up with their own blankets.

Also in the Woodland Garden will be activities such as the Forest Craft Room for arty activities, as well as the Family Nature Quest.

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Light up the Forest will let guests use bicycle power to light up the woodlands too.

The Summer Social Kitchen will be serving street food while drinks will be on offer at the Aspall Bar.

All of the experiences are included in the stay excluding the Forest Craft Room and any food and drink.

The new experience will run from May 25 to August 31.

Other new activities at Sherwood Forest include the Treetop Glider, a wires ride that launched earlier this week, and new padel tennis courts.

It is also the only park to have The Dozing Duck, a lounge area with breakfast and lunch as well as a playground, shuffleboard and crazy pool.

Kids will also love the VOYA Teen Glow Facial, the first spa treatment in the UK designed for younger skin.

And guests can buy exclusive Joules x Center Parcs merchandise at Sherwood Forest, with bags, t shirs and hats.

New premium lodges opened across Sherwood Forest too – here’s what they look like.

Tempted? Here’s how to get a more affordable Center Parcs holiday.

“Curly” Williams returned to his old high school campus last week for the first time in 76 years, but did so under his given name — the same name emblazoned on North Hollywood High’s newest attraction: the John Williams Performing Arts Center.

Williams, 94, attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony last Wednesday, which commenced with the composer’s rousing “Raiders March” played by the school’s marching band and accompanied by its blue-clad cheerleaders.

“I think you played that better than we could have,” Williams said, speaking from a wheelchair under the sign of his namesake venue in front of other accomplished alumni and friends, including producer Kathleen Kennedy. “That’s a hard piece.”

The ambitious construction project, initiated in 2015 and designed by CO Architects occupies 35,000 square feet and seats 800. Michael Stebbins, project manager for the BroadStage in Santa Monica, served as project manager. The center is equipped with state-of-the-art amenities to host student performances and school assemblies, but also to train the next generation of theater technicians. Besides an enormous stage, blue velvet curtains, a mixing console and safe catwalks, the building also features new classrooms and rehearsal spaces.

Students, faculty and guests stand for the national anthem before a concert inside the new John Williams Performing Arts Center, named for one of North Hollywood High’s most famous alumni.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

A 75-foot hand-painted mural in the lobby, still in the works by artist Ian Robertson-Salt, is inspired by Williams’ formidable filmography, which serves “as a daily reminder to every student who walks these halls that greatness can begin right here,” remarked Andrés Chait, acting superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District.

Due to health complications, Williams has made few public appearances in the last two years. He last conducted a concert in February 2024 — and he has also consistently turned down requests to name buildings after him, including at his beloved Tanglewood in Massachusetts, although the Hollywood Bowl did recently name its stage for Williams. It’s a testament to his affection for his time at North Hollywood High, and his regard for the next generation of students, that he not only blessed this dedication but showed up and spoke to a gathered crowd of hundreds.

“I’m sort of silly happy to be here,” he said, calling the dedication “a singular honor in my life.”

Other showbiz alumni on hand included “Beauty and the Beast” producer Don Hahn (class of ’73), “Independence Day” writer-producer Dean Devlin (’80), and Rob Friedman (’81), CEO of Ascendant Entertainment. Partly due to its proximity to the entertainment industry, North Hollywood High has produced a host of famous artists over the decades, including the late Michael Tilson Thomas, who attended in the early 1960s.

John Williams smiles while applauding a performance by the North Hollywood High School band at the dedication ceremony of the John Williams Performing Arts Center on campus.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“At some point you have to stop calling that a coincidence,” said Kennedy, a longtime collaborator of Williams who gave brief remarks before handing him the microphone. “Something happened here, and something can happen again.”

Williams moved to North Hollywood with his family in 1947, having grown up in Queens. He transferred to North Hollywood High as a 15-year-old sophomore, and joined the band and orchestra as a jazz-loving trombonist. His classmates included Susan Sontag (“I remember her teaching a class in civics, when the teacher would sit down and listen to her,” he told me in 2023) and many future actors, including Barbara Ruick, who played Carrie Pipperidge in “Carousel.” But his best friends were all music-inclined guys whose dads, like his, were famous musicians.

A poster board featured yearbook photos of John Williams, left, performing with the North Hollywood High School Band, class of 1950, in the lobby of the new John Williams Performing Arts Center on the North Hollywood High School campus.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Williams embraced the nickname “Curly,” given to him by a fellow student in response to his curly red hair, and quickly created his own jazz band with classmates. Ruick sang with them at school events and dances, and they became the house band at a new teens-only venue in Van Nuys called the Dri-Nite Club. Broadcast on local radio, they caught the attention of Time magazine, which ran a story on “Curly’s” band in October 1949.

A newspaper story about John Williams’ high school band from the Los Angeles Unified School District’s archives.

(Los Angeles Unified School District)

Williams has said he fondly remembers his civics and French classes at North Hollywood High, but his time and passion were almost exclusively devoted to music. He rigorously practiced the piano at home, studying with a local concert pianist and MGM arranger named Robert Van Eps; on Wednesday nights he played in jam sessions with his father (Johnny Sr., a drummer) and the Columbia Pictures orchestra. He bopped around clubs in L.A. listening to jazz greats like Oscar Peterson (whose style influenced Williams’ recent piano concerto), and started making a name of his own as a wunderkind performer and arranger.

Long before he scored “Star Wars” or “Harry Potter,” Williams did his earliest arranging and orchestrating for theater productions at North Hollywood High. The impact of his time at North Hollywood High cannot be overstated.

John Williams featured with members of the class of 1950 in the North Hollywood High School Yearbook.

(Los Angeles Unified School District)

During his remarks about the performing arts center on Wednesday, Williams said he felt particularly overwhelmed because the school was “formative in my thinking and my professional work … This is a great, magical place, North Hollywood.”

Williams eventually married Ruick, his high school sweetheart and mother of his three children. Ruick was instrumental in making many of Williams’ earliest career connections. She died from a brain aneurysm in 1974, at the age of 41, just one year before Williams’ career catapulted with “Jaws.” The couple’s youngest son, Joseph, lead singer of Toto, stood proudly behind Williams during the theater’s dedication.

The John Williams Performing Arts Center (JWPAC) is the crescendo of a $319.5 million modernization project at North Hollywood High, which also includes modern classrooms and athletic facilities. It’s a reflection of the diverse public school’s commitment to the arts; students here can play in the orchestra, marching band or modern band, and study drama or modern dance.

“As I think about what else I might say to all of you younger people, students here,” Williams said at his homecoming Wednesday, “two words about this beautiful building: simply use it. Make sure you all use the place.”

Tim Greiving is the author of “John Williams: A Composer’s Life.”

April 24 (UPI) — Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Friday vetoed a bill that would have paused artificial intelligence data center construction in the state for 18 months.

Mills said she decided to veto it because it would have potentially harmed a permitted and in progress data center expected to create hundreds of jobs, both for construction and once the center opens.

The project, a $550 million data center in Jay, Maine, is a multi-year effort to redevelop the former Androscoggin Mill, which was damaged in a 2020 boiler explosion and then closed in 2023, took with it hundreds of jobs and 22% of the town’s tax revenue.

The bill would have been the first in the country restricting or slowing the spread of large-scale data centers required for power-hungry AI systems, which have driven up the cost of both electricity and water for residents living near them, NBC News and Politico reported.

“A moratorium is appropriate given the impacts of massive data centers in other states on the environment and electricity rates,” Mills said in a press release.

“But the final version of this bill fails to allow for a specific project in the Town of Jay that enjoys strong local support from its host community and region,” she said.

There are more than 5,000 data centers in the United States — more than any country in the world — and that number has grown significantly in the last four years as artificial intelligence has become a focus the tech industry.

While many state and local leaders have started to respond to concerns among residents about the huge amounts of electricity needed to power AI data centers and the huge amounts of water needed to keep them cool, as have some members of Congress.

As states have contemplated increased regulation and scrutiny from tech and AI companies, President Donald Trump at the same time has worked to keep the cuffs of tech companies because they “must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation,” he said in December.

“Excessive state regulation thwarts this imperative,” Trump said in an executive order meant to prevent states from creating new regulations.

Mills said she worked with Maine’s legislature to carve out an exemption for the data center in Jay but was unsuccessful, so she vetoed the law.

The development in Jay, she said, is under contract and permitted, and is expected to create 800 construction jobs, more than 100 high-paying permanent jobs and “substantial tax revenue” for the Town of Jay.

In a letter informing the legislature that she planned to veto the bill, Mills said she plans to issue an executive order to establish a council to study the impacts — real and potential — of data centers in Maine.

“I believe it necessary and important to examine and plan for the potential impacts of large-scale data centers in Maine, as the use of artificial intelligence becomes more widespread,” Mills said.

“Given the serious conversations about data centers here and around the country, I believe this work should commence without delay,” she told legislators.

Streaming entertainment giant Netflix is in negotiations to buy the historic Radford Studio Center lot in Studio City.

Netflix plans to purchase the Los Angeles studio that has been home to generations of landmark television shows, including “Gunsmoke” and “Seinfeld,” according to two people with knowledge of the pending deal who were not authorized to speak about it publicly.

The studio’s previous operator, Hackman Capital Partners, defaulted on a $1.1-billion mortgage in January. Investment bank Goldman Sachs took over the property and is in talks with Netflix to sell it for between $330 million and $400 million.

Representatives for Hackman and Netflix declined to comment on the planned sale.

Culver City-based Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management teamed up to buy the Radford Avenue property from ViacomCBS in 2021 with a winning bid of $1.85 billion, after a competitive battle for the 55-acre studio beloved by the television industry.

At the time, the staggering price tag underscored the value — and scarcity — of TV soundstages in Los Angeles as content producers scrambled for space to shoot TV shows and movies to stock their streaming services. It was one of the largest-ever real estate transactions for a TV studio complex in Los Angeles.

Since then, production has substantially declined in Southern California. L.A. continues to battle the loss of production to other states and countries, as well as the lingering effects on the industry of the pandemic and the 2023 dual writers’ and actors’ strikes. Cutbacks in spending at the major studios after a surge in streaming-fueled TV production have further damped film activity in the region.

Founded by silent film comedy legend Mack Sennett in 1928, the lot became known as “Hit City” in the decades after World War II as popular TV shows such as “Leave It to Beaver,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Will & Grace” were made there. The storied lot gave the Studio City neighborhood its name,

Netflix, which has a market cap of about $455 billion — more than double that of Walt Disney Co. — has maintained its dominance in the global streaming business with more than 325 million subscribers.

The Los Gatos-based company has production offices worldwide, including facilities in Albuquerque, Brooklyn, London, Madrid and Toronto.

Netflix had secured an $82.7-billion deal to buy Warner Bros. studios and streaming services in December, but withdrew from the bidding war in late February after Paramount Skydance offered $31 a share. As part of the switch, Netflix was paid a $2.8-billion termination fee.

April 22 (UPI) — Federal prosecutors Tuesday evening announced an 11-count indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, accusing the non-profit of defrauding donors by using their money to pay informants within hate groups they were monitoring.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the indictment from a Montgomery, Ala., grand jury during a press conference, alleging that between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC paid more than $3 million to informants in hate groups the organization had vowed to dismantle.

“As the indictment described, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups, but it was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” he said, alongside FBI Director Kash Patel.

The indictment, which was returned by an Alabama grand jury just minutes before the press conference, details payments to informants in groups such as the neo-Nazi National Alliance and the Ku Klux Klan, but does not detail extensive evidence that the money was “used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups.”

Federal prosecutors allege that the SPLC obtained money via donations by making “‘materially false representations and omissions about” what the money would be used for and utilized bank accounts linked to “fictitious entities” to covertly pay their field sources.

One SPLC informant is described in the court document as a member of the online leadership chat group behind the 2017 Unite The Right protest in Charlottesville, Va., where one person was killed when a car rammed counterprotesters.

This informant was paid more than $270,000 between 2015 and 2023, according to the indictment, which alleges that they attended the Unite the Right event “at the direction of the SPLC,” made “racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees.

Another SPLC informant described by federal prosecutors as being affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Alliance organization stole 25 boxes of documents from the headquarters of a violent extremist group, copied the materials for the SPLC and returned the originals. The court document alleges that the SPLC paid the informant more than $1 million between 2014 and 2023.

Blanche told reporters during the press conference that the informants were paid via pre-paid cards with funds from donors that were moved from bank accounts that the SPLC created for five fictitious organizations in order to shield the source of the funds.

“They attempted to hide their criminal activity from our financial banking network,” Patel said.

“They set up shell companies and entities around America so that the financial system that we rely on as everyday Americans were deceived into believing that money is not coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center in the perpetration of this scheme and fraud but rather fictitious entities they stood up to perpetuate this ongoing fraud.”

The indictment charges the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Ahead of the press conference, SPLC CEO Bryan Fair announced in a video statement that the organization and its employees were the target of a federal investigation focused on its use of informants, though they had yet to know all the details.

He defended the SPLC’s use of informants as necessary to protect themselves and the public after decades of being “engaged in unprecedented litigation to dismantle the Klan and other hate groups.”

Information the SPLC gained from the informants was frequently shared with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI, he said, adding that they did not broadly share their use of informants to protect their identities.

“While we no longer work with paid informants, we continue to take their safety seriously. These individuals risked their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities of our nation’s most radical and violent extremist groups,” he said, vowing to fight the allegations.

“We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition, and we will not abandon our mission or the communities we serve.”

The SPLC has long faced criticism from some Republicans and conservatives, who say the prominent anti-hate nonprofit has drifted from its mission of fighting extremism and White supremacy by labeling several right-wing organizations as hate groups.

In October, Patel announced that the FBI severed ties with the SPLC, accusing it of having “long abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine.”

Democrats, SPLC supporters and critics of the Trump administration lambasted the indictment as politically motivated, with the American Civil Liberties Union calling it “another example of the Trump administration’s extreme attempts to silence its critics.”

“Let’s be clear about what’s happening here. This administration is using the full weight of federal prosecution to target an organization whose mission is rooting out violent extremism,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said online.

“This is part and parcel of Trump’s assault on free speech, on nonprofits and on anyone who dares to disagree with him.”

House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called the indictment “baseless and illegitimate.”

“These partisan hacks who continue to weaponize the criminal justice system against perceived opponents will never intimidate us,” he said.

WASHINGTON — The Southern Poverty Law Center says it’s the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department and faces possible charges over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.

The civil rights group made the announcement on Tuesday, saying President Trump’s administration appears to be preparing legal action against it or some of its employees.

“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement.

The Justice Department had no immediate comment.

The SPLC previously paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups and gather information on their activities, often sharing it with local and federal law enforcement, Fair said. It was used to monitor threats of violence, he said, adding that the program was kept quiet to protect the safety of informants.

“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” Fair said. “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”

He said the organization “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work.”

The SPLC, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, was founded in 1971 and used civil litigation to fight white supremacist groups. The nonprofit has become a popular target among Republicans who see it as overly leftist and partisan.

The investigation could add to concerns that Trump’s Republican administration is using the Justice Department to go after conservative opponents and his critics. It follows a number of other investigations into Trump foes that have raised questions about whether the law enforcement agency has been turned into a political weapon.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has faced intense criticism from conservatives, who have accused it of unfairly maligning right-wing organizations as extremist groups because of their viewpoints. The SPLC regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.

The SPLC came under fresh scrutiny after the assassination last year of conservative activist Charlie Kirk brought renewed attention to its characterization of the group that Kirk founded and led. The SPLC included a section on that group, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.”

FBI Director Kash Patel said last year that the agency was severing its relationship with the SPLC, which had long provided law enforcement with research on hate crime and domestic extremism. Patel said the SPLC had been turned into a “partisan smear machine,” and he accused it of defaming “mainstream Americans” with its “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States.

House Republicans hosted a hearing centered on the SPLC in December, saying it coordinated efforts with President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration “to target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights to free speech and free association.”

Binkley and Richer write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons, a key executor of President Trump’s mass deportations agenda, will resign at the end of May, federal officials announced Thursday.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced Lyons’ departure, calling him a great leader of ICE who helped to make American communities safer. Mullin said Lyons’ last day will be May 31.

“We wish him luck on his next opportunity in the private sector,” Mullin said in a statement. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to an email from the Associated Press asking why he is resigning.

Lyons, who was named acting director in March 2025, led the agency at the center of President Trump’s plans to reshape immigration to the U.S.

Under his leadership, the agency was granted a massive infusion of cash through Congress, which it used to expand hiring and detention capabilities, and it ramped up arrests to meet demand from the administration.

ICE was also central to a series of high-profile immigration enforcement operations in American cities, including Chicago and Minneapolis, a deployment that ended after backlash erupted over the deaths of two American protesters at the hands of federal immigration officers.

Stephen Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff and the main architect of his immigration policy, called Lyons a “dedicated leader.”

“His courageous work at ICE has saved countless thousands of American lives and helped deliver safety and tranquility to millions of Americans,” Miller said in a statement.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson described Lyons in a post on X as “an American patriot who made our country safer.”

It’s not clear who might replace Lyons. But whoever does will take over an agency flush with cash while still a flashpoint for controversy. ICE is at the center of a battle in Congress, with Democratic lawmakers demanding restraints on immigration officers before agreeing to restore routine funding for DHS.

On Thursday, Lyons, along with two other top immigration officials, appeared before a House subcommittee to argue for his agency’s budget and faced continued scrutiny from lawmakers of ICE’s actions.

Lyons’ departure also comes as DHS is under new leadership after Trump fired former Secretary Kristi Noem, who led the department through the administration’s major immigration policy changes.

Mullin, who took over as secretary last month, is likely to continue to advance the president’s agenda but has struck a softer tone on some of the administration’s most contentious policies.

Public perceptions of ICE during Lyons’ tenure were low. In a February AP-NORC poll, most U.S. adults, including independents, said they have an unfavorable view of the agency.

Lyons faced questions in Congress over the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and was asked if he would apologize for the way some Trump administration officials characterized Good as an agitator. He declined to do so.

“I welcome the opportunity to speak to the family in private. But I’m not going to comment on any active investigation,” Lyons said.

Lyons said he had seen video that captured Pretti’s shooting but said he could not comment, citing an active investigation.

Lyons, who joined ICE in 2007 as an immigration enforcement agent in Texas, signed off on a memo, first obtained by the Associated Press, that granted federal immigration officers sweeping powers to forcibly enter homes and make arrests without a judge’s warrant.

Trump’s border advisor Tom Homan described Lyons as serving selflessly and “a highly respected and effective acting Director of ICE.”

Goldenberg and Golden write for the Associated Press. Golden reported from Seattle.