Ronald Vitiello would have every reason to resent the White House and the president himself after what he has been through over the past year.
The former senior Department of Homeland Security official endured a brutal turn of events in the public spotlight nearly five months ago when President Trump pulled his nomination to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement, of which he was already acting director.
Vitiello, like others Trump has fired, never got a call from the commander-in-chief or anyone else in the White House who knew the nomination was being rescinded.
In a conversation with the Washington Examiner, the 34-year employee of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said he does not harbor any bitterness or resentment against the White House or DHS for how his career in federal immigration-related work had ended.
Then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen urged him to stay on at the department in a different position, which he turned down.
Vitiello spoke in a matter-of-fact tone about how he “went out and got a business license” in the spring. He said he is in conversations with former colleagues and companies about consulting work. He is also an occasional guest on Fox News, which recently brought him back onto Trump’s radar.
Two weeks ago, in a sure sign that he had bounced back, Vitiello appeared on The Ingraham Angle to discuss border issues. Trump saw the segment and wrote on Twitter that Vitiello did a “terrific job” advocating for the administration and border agents.
Vitiello said he was taken aback by the praise and found it “interesting,” but also “funny” that the man who took his job was now saying this.
Vitiello recalled how Thursday, April 4, had started like any other day. The acting ICE director was eight months into the nomination process and scheduled to travel with Trump to the border the following day when legislative staffers got word from Senate committee aides something fishy was going on.
Vitiello was informed Thursday afternoon the White House had rescinded his nomination paperwork from the Senate. ICE aides chocked it up to “a mistake.”
Late Thursday before midnight, Vitiello got a call while at his Northern Virginia home from Nielsen, who he said was just as confused about the rumors as he was.
“She was basically apologizing, ‘Hey, I don’t know what happened. This is a bad thing. I’m really sorry,’” Vitiello said. “What I told her was what I was talking with the staff about — we heard this was a rumor, what did she know about that.”
By Friday morning, Vitiello still had not heard from the White House. That morning, Trump walked out on the South Lawn to a helicopter that would commence his border trip. He stopped to speak with reporters, which Vitiello said was when he finally learned after 24 hours that the rumors were true. It was over before it had even begun.
“We’re going in a little different direction. Ron’s a good man, but we’re going in a tougher direction,” Trump told reporters.
“So, that was 100% confirmation,” Vitiello said.
As Trump jetted off to the border, Vitiello stayed home. After three-and-a-half decades working his way up through U.S. Border Patrol and to the second-highest position at CBP before being shifted to ICE, Vitiello described suddenly being at a standstill.
“The idea that I would be a career employee for 34 years and that I would be in a situation where I was asking senators for their vote was an astonishing, unique experience. So, when it all evaporated, I said, ‘That’s the world we live in today.’ I didn’t take it personal,” Vitiello said. “I’d already had a plan several years back to leave the year I turned 55, and that’s exactly the timing of when the withdrawal came through. In the macro sense, it worked out just fine.”
But his career in Border Patrol is definitely over, he said. And his next move will be on his own terms.
