About

Leadership

Director, Office of Public Affairs,
Nicholas J. Smith

Nick Smith was named director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Public Affairs in August 2005. As director, Smith is responsible for all internal and external communications and messaging for the 20,000-plus employee agency.

Before coming to ICE, Smith spent nearly eight years working with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist as press secretary, communications director, and then deputy chief of staff. He took time off from his regular role in 2000 to serve as press secretary for Frist’s reelection campaign. That year, Bill Frist received the largest vote total of any statewide candidate in Tennessee history. In 2004 he again took time off from the Senate to support Frist, who served as a primary surrogate for the ’04 Bush-Cheney campaign. During this stint Smith traveled with Frist to over 25 states in two months managing campaign communications.

Smith produced and directed the monthly cable program “On Call With Bill Frist” and was key communications coordinator for Frist’s office during the Capitol shooting in 1998, the anthrax attack in 2001, and Frist’s transition to majority leader in 2002.

In 2005, Smith traveled with Frist to Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt meeting with key leaders to discuss the Middle East Peace Process, and also stopping to tour the joint U.S.-Jordan police training facility for Iraqi officers. In 2004 he made two trips to Africa, visiting countries including South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, Sudan, Chad, Kenya and Namibia with Doctor and Senate Majority Leader Frist to assess the African HIV/AIDS crisis and the appropriate U.S. role in fighting it.

Prior to his work with the Senator, Smith produced policy briefings and worked in investor relations for a public policy Web site, POLICY.COM. Before that he served as press assistant to Senator Arlen Specter, coordinating communications with local media, producing a monthly radio show, and creating the Senator’s first Web page.

Smith graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a BA in international politics and minors in history and geography. He took advanced Spanish courses at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in 1994. He was also treasurer in 2000 and president in 2001 of the United States Senate Press Secretaries Association.