Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons stated on Tuesday that a now-withdrawn “60 Minutes” segment alleging misconduct in the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador misrepresented how U.S. immigration enforcement operates and ignored key facts about those removed from the country.
Lyons responded on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” regarding reports that “60 Minutes” had withdrawn a segment scheduled to air Sunday examining the deportation of roughly 250 Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador’s high-security CECOT prison. The segment, portions of which later circulated on social media, suggested migrants were improperly detained despite committing no serious crimes beyond entering the U.S. illegally.
“What’s frustrating for me is the fact that we don’t just randomly pick people to go to some country or some prison,” Lyons said. “These were individuals that were either known or suspected gang members, had committed a crime in the United States, or were in the country illegally.”
CECOT, El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, is a maximum-security prison built under President Nayib Bukele to house suspected gang members as part of his administration’s crackdown on violent crime.
According to Lyons, individuals highlighted in the “60 Minutes” segment could not be returned to Venezuela at the time because the Maduro government would not accept them. “For each one of those individuals, I don’t exactly know the specifics,” Lyons said. “But what I’m saying is, we have a great third-country national system.”
Lyons rejected claims that migrants were labeled gang members solely due to tattoos, stating ICE determinations are based on long-standing intelligence practices. “This is my fifth time working under a different administration,” he added. “Gang intelligence is what we’ve been doing for so long. It’s based on solid criminal intelligence and solid investigative work, and we’ll stand by it.”
Lyons emphasized that ICE enforces the Immigration and Nationality Act as written, noting criticism intensifies when the agency carries out its mission. “When people see we’re actually enforcing the law the way it’s written, they get frustrated,” he said.
Host Rob Schmitt criticized “60 Minutes” and other mainstream media outlets for prioritizing the El Salvador story while failing to investigate child sex trafficking linked to open border policies under the Biden administration. Lyons agreed, citing a recent ICE raid in California that uncovered child labor trafficking at a marijuana grow operation. “We were out there with an actual criminal warrant, and we found children working underage,” he stated. “But nobody covered that.”
Lyons affirmed ICE will continue enforcement efforts regardless of political or media pressure. “We’re not going to let stuff like this stop us,” he concluded.
