Immigration and Customs Enforcement - Definition and Overview

The United States Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the largest investigative arm of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is responsible for identifying and shutting down vulnerabilities in the nation's border, economic, transportation and infrastructure security.

ICE, which employs more than 20,000 people, is tasked with the enforcement of immigration and customs laws within the United States, the protection of specified federal buildings, and air and marine enforcement. ICE is headed by an assistant secretary who reports to the undersecretary of homeland security for border and transportation security.

History

With the establishment of the DHS, the functions, expertise, resources and jurisdictions of several once-fragmented border and security agencies were merged and reconstituted into ICE, the DHS's largest investigative bureau. The agencies that were either moved entirely or merged in part, based upon law enforcement functions, included the investigative and intelligence resources of the United States Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Protective Service and the Federal Air Marshals Service.

Organization

ICE is composed of the following operational divisions:

• Office of Investigations - responsible for investigating a range of issues, including human trafficking, narcotics, weapons and all other contraband smuggling; export enforcement, such as investigating illegal arms exports and exports of dual-use equipment that may threaten national security; financial crimes, such as money laundering, terrorist financing, commercial fraud, intellectual property rights (including commercial counterfeiting) violations; cybercrime; immigration crime; and human rights violations; violations of the criminal and administrative provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and other related provisions of the United States Code.

• Office of Detention and Removal - responsible for promoting public safety and national security by ensuring the departure from the United States of all removable aliens through the fair enforcement of the nation's immigration laws.

• Office of Air and Marine Operations - responsible for protecting the nation's borders and the American people from the smuggling of people, narcotics and other contraband. Also responsible for detecting and deterring terrorist activity with an integrated and coordinated air and marine interdiction force.

• Office of the Federal Air Marshal Service - responsible for promoting confidence in the U.S. civil aviation system through the effective deployment of sky marshals to detect, deter and defeat hostile acts targeting U.S. air carriers, airports, passengers and crews. Formerly part of the Federal Aviation Administration, it was supposed to be transferred to the Transportation Security Administration but never was.

• Office of the Federal Protective Service - responsible for policing, securing and ensuring a safe environment in which federal agencies can conduct their business by reducing threats posed against the more than 8,800 General Services Administration-controlled facilities nationwide. It employs over 2000 security police officers and over 15000 contract security guards.

• Office of Intelligence - responsible for the collection, analysis and dissemination of strategic and tactical intelligence data for use by the operational elements of ICE and the DHS; responsible for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence to immigration staff at all levels to aid in making day-to-day, mid-term, and long-term operational decisions; acquiring and allocating resources; and determining policy.

External links

• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (http://www.ice.gov/)
• U.S. Department of Homeland Security (http://www.dhs.gov/)