Ximena Bustillo
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Ventrella most recently worked for the department overseeing contracts between ICE and various detention facilities.
He previously worked for ICE during the Obama and George W. Bush administrations.
He left the agency to work for GeoGroup, a private prison company that contracts with the federal government for immigration detention.
The selection comes as leadership at DHS led by new secretary Mark Wayne Mullen are looking to shift away from controversial surges of enforcement and build up detention and deportation capacity.
Ventrella will inherit a much larger workforce.
About 12,000 new employees were added in the last year.
Congressional Republicans gave ICE $75 billion last summer, about half to spend on the tension space.
Ximena Bustillo, NPR News, Washington.
White House Border Czar Tom Homan kicked off the expo, and while the focus of this event is on the technology, equipment, and policies that secure the borders of the U.S., Homan took the opportunity to also tout the administration's continued goal of mass deportations.
Homeland Security officials say money from Congress has allowed agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hire 2,500 lawyers to practice in immigration court and 11,000 deportation officers.
Ximena Bustillo, NPR News, Phoenix.
Last year, after an Afghan national shot two National Guards members in Washington, D.C., killing one, the Trump administration paused reviewing any applications filed by people born in 39 countries.
Immigration lawyer Zachary New says that has produced severe consequences.
New represents more than 500 people whose lives are on hold because of the pause.
Two federal judges have ordered the government to process the applications of 116 people, but many are still waiting, and there's no sense of when or if the pause will lift.
The decision comes from the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is an administrative court that hears appeals from immigration courts.
Both are part of the Justice Department.
This case centers on a DACA recipient who was detained by Customs and Border Protection while boarding a domestic flight last summer.