Top ICE official resigns to seek battleground congressional seat in Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A top ICE official resigned her job on Thursday in hopes of ousting the longest-serving woman in Congress, Democrat Marcy Kaptur, this fall.

In a video launching her campaign for Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, former ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan said she had stopped more illegal immigration in her less than a year on the job than Kaptur had in her 43 years in Washington.

“In Washington, hypocrisy, excuses and failure can earn you a lifetime job,” she said. “But on my family farm, that would have put us out of business.”

The announcement comes as President Donald Trump is determined to maintain Republicans’ threadbare House majority this fall, so he can avoid a repeat of his first presidency, when Democrats won control of the chamber in midterm elections and went on to impeach him twice. His actions have included candidate recruitment and efforts to pressure states to redraw their congressional lines.

Sheahan, 28, a native of tiny Curtice, Ohio, near the shores of Lake Erie, labeled herself “a Trump conservative.” Before Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tapped her for the ICE position in March, Sheahan served as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and as Noem’s aide when she was governor of South Dakota.

In a resignation letter posted on the social media platform X, Sheahan thanked Noem and Trump for their “steadfast commitment” to the immigration agency and expressed pride in what ICE has accomplished.

In a statement Thursday, the Kaptur campaign said, “Voters are tired of the self-dealing corruption and culture of lawlessness they’ve seen over the last year. They want a leader focused on affordability and real results, and Marcy Kaptur consistently works across the aisle to deliver both.”

The 79-year-old incumbent is accustomed to steep challenges in a Lake Erie-hugging district centered on Toledo, which has been drawn and redrawn to increasingly favor the state’s ruling Republicans. A bipartisan map approved last year resulted in boundaries that give Republicans a nearly 11-point advantage over Democrats for her seat, up from a roughly 9.5-point advantage in 2024.

In that year, Kaptur defeated Republican state Rep. Derek Merrin by such a close margin that The Associated Press did not call the race until official results were entered, more than two weeks after the election. The final result was 48.3% to 47.6%.

The Kaptur campaign’s statement hinted at the possibility of another “messy primary” — like the one in 2024 — shaping up among Republicans seeking the chance to take her on in November.

Sheahan is the seventh Republican to announce a bid for the GOP nomination, a field that also includes Merrin. Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, considered a potentially top contender to defeat Kaptur, was removed as a contender last week when he was named Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s running mate.

David Gedert, a Toledo-area entrepreneur who The Blade of Toledo has reported is better known on stage as drag queen Sugar Vermonte, is running as a Libertarian.