President Biden's nominee to lead ICE pulls nomination, citing year-long confirmation delay

Ed Gonzalez, the sheriff of Texas' most populous county, on Monday announced he had withdrawn his nomination to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under President Biden, a decision that will further prolong a 5-year-long leadership void in an agency at the center of the nation's contentious immigration debate.

In a series of posts on Twitter, Gonzalez, who is currently sheriff of Harris County, noted that his nomination to be ICE's director, which was announced in April 2021, had stalled in Congress for over a year. In a letter to Mr. Biden over the weekend, Gonzalez said he had concluded that pulling his name from the nomination process was "in the best interest of the nation that we love."

"I arrive at this difficult decision with the understanding that the challenges of preserving both the integrity of America's borders and our country's global standing as a beacon of light for those seeking freedom and opportunity have never been greater," Gonzalez wrote in his June 25 letter, which was obtained by CBS News.