Biden nominates Texas sheriff to be ICE director
The White House also nominated an Air Force secretary
After migration at the southern border skyrocketed and became a major crisis for the Biden administration, the Harris County, Texas, sheriff has been nominated to become director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Ed Gonzalez, a Democrat, was re-elected for a second term as sheriff in 2020 but will now move into the Biden administration to tackle a major challenge.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that announcing Gonzalez's nomination Tuesday shows it was a "priority."
"The president looks forward to having someone in place in this position and it certainly indicates a priority that we've put it out today," she told reporters in a briefing that was in progress when the list of nominees was released.
Gonzalez's name was among a list of nearly a dozen nominations.
The White House also announced the nomination of Frank Kendall for Air Force secretary and Gina Ortiz Jones as under secretary.
Kendall is an Obama administration alum and engineering expert. Ortiz Jones ran for Congress in 2018 and 2020 -- coming within just 900 votes of winning in 2018.
Other nominations included in the same news release included the inspector general for the intelligence community, assistant secretaries in the Army and Navy, general counsel for the Department of Defense and representatives in the Department of State.