Trump Cabinet member caught in embarrassing error: 'Someone there did the math wrong'

The Trump administration made a small but conspicuous mathematical error in announcing its new nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an immigration policy analyst pointed out Saturday.

The flub came as President Donald Trump announced he would nominate Lance Schroyer, described as a former Oklahoma state trooper and Marine, to serve as the next director of ICE. According to reporting from journalist Priscilla Alvarez, the agency has not had a Senate-confirmed director since 2017.

That timeline is where the administration ran into trouble.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration analyst who closely tracks the agency, flagged that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had characterized the nominee as the first Senate-confirmed director in 11 years — a figure that doesn't square with the math.

"Someone there did the math wrong," Reichlin-Melnick wrote, noting that the actual gap "would be just under 10 years" rather than 11.

The discrepancy is minor in the scheme of things, amounting to roughly a year's difference in how long the agency has gone without a permanent, Senate-confirmed leader. But it's the kind of easily checkable detail that tends to draw attention when it appears in an official announcement from a cabinet secretary.

ICE has been led by a series of acting directors since the departure of its last confirmed chief, a vacancy that has stretched across multiple administrations even as the agency has taken on an increasingly central role in Trump's immigration agenda.

Schroyer's nomination, if confirmed by the Senate, would end that years-long stretch. Whether it spans 10 years or 11, the gap underscores how long one of the administration's most prominent enforcement agencies has operated without a permanent leader installed through the full confirmation process.