Venturella departs ICE assistant director role to join GEO Group as an executive, establishing the revolving door template

Damon Venturella, who had served as an ICE assistant director overseeing detention operations, left the agency in 2012 to take an executive position at The GEO Group — the largest private immigration detention contractor and a company whose contracts he had overseen as a government official. Federal ethics rules required Venturella to obtain an ethics opinion before working on matters related to his former government responsibilities. His departure established a revolving-door template between ICE detention oversight and private detention contracting that other senior officials would follow.