(PHOENIX, ARIZONA) The Trump administration removed Phoenix’s top immigration enforcement officer from his post on October 24, 2025, reassigning Phoenix Field Office Director John Cantu in a quiet shake-up that also displaced his counterparts in Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Diego. The move, not publicly announced by the Department of Homeland Security or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was confirmed by multiple people familiar with the changes and framed by sources as part of a wider Trump administration purge of ICE leadership.
Cantu, a longtime Phoenix ICE official, was relieved of his duties and reassigned within the agency as the White House presses for higher arrest and deportation numbers and installs Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection leaders into interior enforcement roles. > “The administration wanted all these guys fired and Todd stepped in and said, ‘Let’s move them all to headquarters,’” a second official said, referring to acting ICE Director Todd Lyons’ intervention to prevent terminations. Other field office directors removed from their posts were Robert Guadian in Denver, Patrick Divver in San Diego, Ernesto Santacruz in Los Angeles, and Brian McShane in Philadelphia, according to the same sources.
The reassignments were carried out over the weekend of October 25–26, 2025, with internal notifications following at the start of the workweek. Staff in multiple offices were informed on October 27, 2025, with Guadian addressing his Denver team that Monday. None of the displaced directors, including John Cantu, responded to requests for comment, and ICE did not issue formal notices to the public about the changes. The silence around the moves underscored how abruptly the reshuffle landed in field offices that direct arrests, detention decisions, and case processing across wide regions.
Senior administration figures have pushed to replace veteran ICE managers with Border Patrol leadership in an effort to bring a more aggressive enforcement style into the interior of the country, beyond Border Patrol’s traditional 100-mile border zone. Sources described the plan as unprecedented, both in its scope and in the cross-agency transfers it relies on. The change is intended to lift arrests and deportations quickly, and it recasts the balance of power in interior enforcement from career ICE managers to Border Patrol and CBP veterans aligned with the White House’s goals.
The internal dispute over tactics has been sharp. On one side, Border Czar Tom Homan and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons have argued to concentrate on people with criminal convictions or final deportation orders, the kinds of cases ICE historically prioritized. On the other, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Senior Adviser Corey Lewandowski, and Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino have urged a broader dragnet to go after anyone in the country unlawfully to bolster overall numbers. As one senior DHS official told Fox News: > “ICE started off with the worst of the worst, knowing every target they are hitting, but since Border Patrol came to LA in June, we’ve lost our focus, going too hard, too fast, with limited prioritization,” the official said. “It’s getting numbers, but at what cost?” Another official added, > “ICE is arresting criminal aliens. They [Border Patrol] are hitting Home Depots and car washes.”
Inside DHS, the short-term answer to that question appears to be reassignments rather than firings after pushback from Lyons. In Phoenix, where John Cantu’s removal landed without a public explanation, officers now look to interim leadership while the department positions Border Patrol or CBP officials to take the helm. Similar transitions are underway in Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Philadelphia, with sources saying the same template is being prepared for other cities. The approach, which sources called “unprecedented,” marks a clear shift in who sets priorities for interior operations day to day.
The scope of the shake-up is widening. While the initial wave focused on five cities, sources say the plan is expected to extend to more of ICE’s 24 field offices nationwide, with Fox News reporting that at least eight cities are now included, adding Portland, El Paso, and New Orleans to the list. At headquarters, the department is assembling replacements drawn from senior Border Patrol and CBP ranks, moving them into field director chairs that traditionally have gone to career ICE managers. That strategy, according to current and former officials, is designed to make arrest and removal numbers the central metric by which field offices are judged.
The administration’s targets are ambitious. The White House is aiming for 600,000 deportations by January 2026, according to people familiar with internal goals. In May 2025, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller pressed ICE to arrest 3,000 undocumented immigrants per day—more than 1 million per year—though current totals remain below that benchmark, these people said. The pressure to accelerate enforcement has filtered down into day-to-day choices in the field, with critics inside DHS warning that a numbers-first approach risks sweeping up people who were not initially a priority and diluting resources away from cases against people with serious criminal convictions.
Publicly, DHS has downplayed talk of a purge. > “While we have no personnel changes to announce at this time, the Trump administration remains laser focused on delivering results and removing violent criminal illegal aliens from this country,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in response to questions about the reshuffle. The absence of formal announcements and the reliance on internal briefings have left many ICE staff learning about changes from supervisors rather than official statements, including in Phoenix, where Cantu’s departure reverberated through a field office that oversees arrests and detention operations across Arizona.
The internal friction has been most visible in Los Angeles, where Border Patrol teams were embedded into ICE operations in June, a test run that DHS insiders say has since become a model for other cities. The senior DHS official who spoke to Fox News said the integration blurred priorities: > “ICE started off with the worst of the worst, knowing every target they are hitting, but since Border Patrol came to LA in June, we’ve lost our focus, going too hard, too fast, with limited prioritization.” That official then posed a stark question about trade-offs: > “It’s getting numbers, but at what cost?” The second official who contrasted the two agencies’ tactics did so bluntly: > “ICE is arresting criminal aliens. They [Border Patrol] are hitting Home Depots and car washes.” Together, those remarks captured the core of a debate playing out from headquarters to field teams.
For Phoenix, the turnover lands at a sensitive moment. Arizona’s interior enforcement has long balanced worksite operations, jail transfers, and targeted arrests based on criminal histories or outstanding removal orders. The removal of a Phoenix ICE official as established as John Cantu represents a deliberate break with that steady-state model in favor of a more muscular, centrally directed push. Field directors set operational tone—deciding where teams concentrate and how to allocate limited officers and detention beds. Installing Border Patrol or CBP leadership into those seats is intended to reshape those choices quickly, according to people familiar with the plan.
The weekend timing underscores how the Trump administration purge unfolded with speed and a measure of secrecy. The five removals were executed over October 25–26, 2025, with offices notified internally on October 27, 2025. In Denver, staff heard directly from Guadian. In Phoenix, colleagues learned Cantu had been moved and were told to await further instructions on reporting lines. In Los Angeles, San Diego, and Philadelphia, similar internal messages circulated. None of the five displaced leaders spoke publicly about the changes, and there were no visible send-offs or formal transitions described by people in those offices.
The leadership overhaul also serves a messaging purpose within DHS. By moving field chiefs instead of issuing new memos or guidelines, the White House is signaling that results—measured in arrests and removals—will be driven by personnel choices rather than policy pronouncements. This approach places Border Patrol’s command culture at the center of interior enforcement and sidelines ICE managers who preferred calibrated prioritization. To that end, officials said more cities are likely to see similar moves, with headquarters assignments used as holding posts for displaced directors while replacements get situated.
Advocates inside DHS for a broader sweep have argued that only a wider net can hit the administration’s numbers by January 2026. Opponents inside the department warn that rapid, indiscriminate operations could overwhelm field offices with lower-priority cases and complicate coordination with local jails and courts. The Fox News interviews with senior DHS officials laid bare that rift, with one insisting that a singular focus on “the worst of the worst” is being lost, and another drawing a sharp contrast between ICE’s targeted work and Border Patrol’s location-based raids at “Home Depots and car washes.” Those lines, officials say, are now being redrawn in cities like Phoenix by changing who sits in the director’s chair.
In the near term, the changes leave questions about continuity. Field office directors manage relationships with local law enforcement, coordinate with federal prosecutors, and make choices about where to direct limited enforcement teams on any given day. A swift turnover can unsettle those routines, even if rank-and-file operations continue. The reassignment of John Cantu, coupled with the removal of Guadian, Divver, Santacruz, and McShane, points to a deliberate strategy to reset those relationships and priorities without a prolonged public debate over policy memos. Instead, the administration is shifting the personnel who implement those policies on the ground.
DHS, ICE, and CBP declined to confirm the personnel moves on the record, and the agencies did not respond to detailed questions about interim leadership in the affected cities or the criteria used to tap Border Patrol and CBP replacements. Internally, however, officials described the project as part of a broader reorganization that could touch most of ICE’s 24 field offices. For general information on how ICE divides operations geographically, the agency’s ICE field offices contact page outlines the nationwide structure that these leadership changes will alter if the reshuffle continues.
What began as a targeted effort to swap out five field leaders has evolved into a wider reconfiguration of who runs immigration enforcement in the interior. In Phoenix, that shift is already tangible: John Cantu is out of the director’s office and reassigned to another post at headquarters, and Border Patrol-linked leadership is expected to move in. Whether that translates into more arrests and deportations on the timetable the White House wants will be measured in the months ahead, but the method is unmistakable. By reaching past ICE’s own ranks to install Border Patrol and CBP officials, the administration is betting that personnel changes can achieve what policy guidance alone has not—faster, bigger enforcement results with fewer internal veto points.
The strategy carries risks the department itself has flagged. A senior DHS official’s warning—> “we’ve lost our focus, going too hard, too fast”—reflects concerns that the numbers chase could backfire by swamping the system with lower-priority cases. Yet the counterargument from the administration is equally clear, summed up by McLaughlin’s statement that the government is > “laser focused on delivering results and removing violent criminal illegal aliens from this country.” Between those poles, the Trump team has chosen to move leaders rather than debate priorities in public, and Phoenix sits squarely in that experiment.
If the push expands to Portland, El Paso, New Orleans, and beyond, as sources indicate, the reshuffle that began with five cities will amount to a nationwide reset of ICE’s leadership. For now, Phoenix is a case study in how it works: a Phoenix ICE official, John Cantu, removed on October 24, 2025, staff told the following Monday, and Border Patrol and CBP leaders poised to step in. The Trump administration purge of ICE field bosses has moved from rumor to reality, executed over a single weekend and aimed at one goal—more arrests and more removals, sooner rather than later.
This Article in a Nutshell
The Trump administration reassigned Phoenix ICE director John Cantu on October 24, 2025, as part of a discreet reshuffle that also affected Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego and Philadelphia. Executed over October 25–27, the moves install Border Patrol and CBP leaders in field director roles to accelerate arrests and deportations, with a White House target of 600,000 removals by January 2026. Critics inside DHS warn a numbers-driven strategy risks diverting resources from serious criminal cases and overwhelming field operations.
