Pham, who once sought Henrico comm. attorney's seat, resigning as acting ICE director

Acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tony Pham, who lost in his 2015 attempt to claim the Henrico Commonwealth’s attorney’s seat, is resigning his federal government post at the end of December.

“I am grateful for the Trump Administration for providing me the single highest honor of my career in serving my adopted country as both the Principal Legal Advisor and the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement," he said in a statement. “Leading a law enforcement agency with such a committed workforce has been the honor of a lifetime. I have gotten to meet with many extraordinary employees across the United States. I will continue to be that tireless advocate for the hard working men and women at ICE.”

Pham wrote that he would resign to move back to the Richmond area to be with his family.

His brief tenure at ICE has included controversy, as the office and Pham himself came under fire from opponents who cited efforts such as erecting billboards in several areas prior to the November presidential election as politically motivated. The billboards included images of immigration violators who had been arrested or convicted of crimes in the United States and released.

At the time, Pham said that so-called “sanctuary cities” (localities that don’t cooperate with ICE by failing to share information about immigration violators) create “significant public safety concerns” by doing so.
Pham had served as principal legal adviser to ICE since January, before being named its acting director Aug. 25.

He has frequently has told the story of how his family escaped Vietnam in 1975 when he was two years old, just 11 days before the capital of the country fell into Communist control. Critics have suggested that the Trump administration elevated Pham in part because of his background.

Officials with SEARC, a national civil rights group that advocates for Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese Americans, said in a statement Friday that they were “heartened to hear of Tony Pham’s impending resignation as the director of ICE. During his brief tenure, Pham expanded the Trump administration’s cruel attacks on our communities and used his identity as a Vietnamese refugee as political cover.”

But in a September interview with the Chesterfield Observer, Pham said that he would not stand for racist actions in the agency.

“I understand when families talk about the horrors of fleeing oppression,” he told the paper. “Any decision that is made to the application of the rule of law is done with deliberate, thoughtful processes, understanding ‘Do we apply the law in this fashion? Is it fair? Is it just and is it equitable?’”

He also told the Observer that ICE is “not an organization bent on intolerance or racism. It can’t be, not with me at the head.”