Secretary Noem Names Charles Wall Deputy Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

The Deputy Director of ICE is the agency’s second‑in‑command and chief operating officer. According to ICE’s leadership description, the deputy director:

• Oversees ICE’s day‑to‑day operations, including more than 20,000 employees, such as over 6,800 criminal investigators in Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and 6,000 officers in Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
• Manages personnel in 400+ domestic and international offices and administers an annual budget of more than $9 billion.
• Implements the ICE Director’s policies and DHS priorities across the agency’s main missions: immigration enforcement, detention and removals, and investigations of cross‑border crime.
• Exercises significant management authority, including serving as the appointing authority for ICE Senior Executive Service (SES) positions and chairing ICE’s Executive Resources Board, which oversees senior leadership staffing and performance. In practical terms, the deputy director runs the agency’s daily law‑enforcement work, allocates resources, and ensures field offices carry out ICE’s mission within U.S. law and DHS guidance.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is one component agency inside the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Its role is much narrower than DHS’s overall mission.

Role of ICE within DHS:

• ICE enforces more than 400 federal statutes focused on immigration enforcement, humane detention, preventing terrorism, and combating the illegal movement of people and goods.
• Its two main law‑enforcement branches are Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which investigates cross‑border crime (such as human trafficking, drug smuggling, money laundering, and trade fraud), and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which identifies, detains, and removes people the government deems deportable from inside the United States.

How this differs from DHS itself:

• DHS is a cabinet‑level department with a broad mission: “With honor and integrity, we will safeguard the American people, our homeland, and our values.” It oversees many components, including ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and others.
• DHS sets overall homeland security policy and coordinates across these agencies, while ICE specifically handles interior immigration and customs‑related law enforcement under DHS direction.

At ICE, the Principal Legal Advisor is the agency’s top lawyer and head of the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA).

What the Principal Legal Advisor does:

• Leads the largest legal program in DHS, supervising over 1,700 attorneys and hundreds of staff nationwide.
• Provides legal advice to ICE leadership and personnel on immigration, customs, criminal, employment, ethics, FOIA/Privacy Act, contracts, and other administrative law issues.

Connection to removal proceedings:

• By statute, OPLA is the exclusive representative of DHS in immigration removal proceedings before the Department of Justice’s immigration courts (the Executive Office for Immigration Review).
• OPLA attorneys act as the government’s trial lawyers (similar to prosecutors) in these cases: they file and litigate removal cases, present evidence, question witnesses, and argue whether a noncitizen should be ordered removed or can obtain relief.
• As Principal Legal Advisor, Charles Wall oversaw this entire litigation function, directing strategy and guidance for how ICE attorneys handle removal cases, including the use of prosecutorial discretion (for example, whether to pursue or close certain cases).

“Removal proceedings” are the formal civil immigration court process the U.S. government uses to decide whether a non‑U.S. citizen must be removed (deported) from the United States.

Basic steps and how they work:

1. Case is started by DHS/ICE: DHS (often ICE) issues a charging document called a Notice to Appear (NTA), alleging why the person is removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
2. Hearings before an immigration judge: Cases are heard in immigration court, part of the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), not in criminal court. A DHS/ICE lawyer (from OPLA) appears for the government; the noncitizen (the “respondent”) may have a lawyer but must pay for one themselves.
3. Decision on removability: The judge first decides if DHS has proven the person is legally “removable” based on the charges and evidence.
4. Applications for relief: If the person is found removable, they can often apply for forms of “relief from removal” such as asylum, withholding of removal, protection under the Convention Against Torture, or cancellation of removal. The judge holds an evidentiary hearing and decides whether to grant any relief or order removal.
5. Appeals: Either side can appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), and then, in many cases, to federal courts. A removal order becomes “final” after appeals are exhausted or waived.
6. Enforcement of the order: If there is a final removal order and no relief, ICE decides whether and when to carry out the removal, which can include detention or supervised release while arrangements are made.

Most immigration judge cases are removal proceedings; some noncitizens are instead subject to faster “expedited removal” processes handled by DHS officials without a full court hearing.

Available information indicates that the Deputy Director of ICE is not a position that requires Senate confirmation.

• By law, the Director of ICE is appointed by the president “with Senate advice and consent,” making it a Senate‑confirmed position.
• Authoritative lists of Senate‑confirmed positions and ICE’s own policy documents describe the Deputy Director as a Senior Executive Service (SES) official who serves as the appointing authority for SES positions and chairs the Executive Resources Board, but they do not list the Deputy Director as a presidential appointee requiring Senate confirmation.

Therefore, the Deputy Director is typically selected and appointed within the executive branch (by DHS leadership/ICE Director) without a separate Senate confirmation process.

The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office is the local prosecuting office for Orleans Parish, Louisiana (which is essentially the city of New Orleans).

What the office does:

• Prosecutes state criminal cases on behalf of the public, including serious felonies such as homicide, armed robbery, sexual assault, and other violent and property crimes.
• Works with local police and other agencies to investigate crimes, bring charges, negotiate plea agreements, and take cases to trial in Louisiana state courts.

What this experience suggests about Wall’s background:

• Serving as a prosecutor and Senior Assistant District Attorney there means Wall handled major felony cases and led trial work aimed at securing convictions against “dangerous and violent criminals,” as ICE’s biography notes.
• This indicates extensive courtroom experience, familiarity with criminal law and procedure, and a background in adversarial litigation and law‑enforcement collaboration—skills directly transferable to overseeing ICE’s legal and enforcement operations.