United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security. Its stated mission is to conduct criminal investigations, enforce immigration laws, preserve national security, and protect public safety. ICE was created as part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 following the September 11 attacks. It absorbed the prior functions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the United States Customs Service.
ICE has two primary and distinct law enforcement components: Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). It has three supporting divisions: the Management and Program Administration, the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA), and the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). ICE maintains domestic offices throughout the United States and detachments at major U.S. diplomatic missions overseas. ICE personnel (special agents and officers) do not patrol American borders; rather, that role is performed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the U.S. Coast Guard. The acting director is David Venturella; the agency has not had a Senate-confirmed director since Sarah Saldaña stepped down on January 20, 2017.
ICE has been involved in multiple controversies and has been the subject of increased protests and criticism during the first and second presidencies of Donald Trump, particularly in 2018 and in 2025, with some activists calling for its abolition. Following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025, ICE became the largest and most well-funded U.S. federal law enforcement agency. Its enforcement actions, publicity campaigns, and tactics have generated public controversy and raised concerns over legality, accountability, and civil rights. Federal judges have overwhelmingly ruled against and criticized the agency's detention policies in court cases, and ICE has repeatedly disobeyed court orders. Following Operation Metro Surge in January 2026, during which federal agents killed civilians Renée Good and Alex Pretti, the agency has faced widespread criticism and been described by critics as an increasingly militarized police force, secret police, and paramilitary.
Description
A federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security, ICE's stated mission is "[p]rotecting America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety". ICE enforces more than 400 federal statutes, focusing on customs violations, immigration enforcement, terrorism prevention, and trafficking.
ICE's two primary and distinct law enforcement components are: Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)
HSI is focused on the disruption of transnational crime, whereas ERO is responsible for the apprehension, detention, deportation and removal of illegal immigrants. ERO is among the most public and contentious functions of ICE, and maintains custodial facilities used to detain people who are illegally present in the United States and pose a reasonable threat to public safety. The agency's three supporting divisions are: Management and Program Administration The Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) The Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) Like its predecessor in immigration enforcement, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the agency and its personnel are known informally in Spanish as "".
History
Background
The 1876 US Supreme Court case Chy Lung v. Freeman established the power of the US federal government to set and enforce rules regarding immigration.. The Immigration Act of 1891 created a commissioner of immigration in the Treasury Department. In 1903, immigration was transferred to the purview of the Department of Commerce and Labor and, after it split in 1913, to the Department of Labor.Darrell Hevenor Smith and H. Guy Herring, The Bureau of Immigration: Its History, Activities, and Organization (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1924). The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was established in 1933. In 1940, with increasing concern about national security, services relating to immigration and naturalization were organized under the authority of the Department of Justice.Sharon D. Masanz, History of the Immigration and Naturalization Service: A Congressional Research Service Report (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1980)
Origins and initial activities
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (under the Justice Department) and the United States Customs Service (under the Treasury Department) were dissolved on March 1, 2003, when the Homeland Security Act of 2002 transferred most of their functions to three new entities—United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—within the newly created United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as part of a major government reorganization following the September 11 attacks of 2001. ICE is the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security and a contributor to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. The agency operates with a significant budget and workforce.
The agencies that were either moved entirely or merged in part into ICE included: The criminal investigative and intelligence resources of the United States Customs Service The criminal investigative, detention and deportation resources of the Immigration and Naturalization Service The Federal Protective Service
The Federal Protective Service was later transferred from ICE to the National Protection and Programs Directorate effective October 28, 2009. In 2003, Asa Hutchinson moved the Federal Air Marshals Service from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to ICE, but Michael Chertoff moved them back to the TSA in 2005.
In February 2005, ICE began Operation Community Shield, a national law enforcement initiative that targets violent transnational street gangs through the use of ICE's broad law enforcement powers, including the unique and powerful authority to remove criminal immigrants, including illegal immigrants and legal permanent residents.
Obama administration Between 2009 and 2016, the Obama administration oversaw the deporting of a record 2.4 million illegal immigrants who had entered the United States, earning him the nickname "deporter-In-chief" by Janet Murguía, the president of National Council of La Raza. According to ICE data, about 40% of those deported by ICE in 2015 had no criminal conviction, while a majority of those convicted were guilty of minor charges. Statistics of record deportations were partly due to a change in how deportations were counted that began during the Bush administration and continued under the Obama administration.
20172021: First Trump administration
Leadership ICE had seven acting directors during the first Trump administration: Tom Homan - from January 2017Multiple sources:
to June 2018. Nominated for permanent position in November 2017. Ronald Vitiello - from June 2018 to April 2019. Nominated for permanent position in August 2018. Matthew Albence - from April 2019 to May 2019, and again from July 2019 to August 2020. Mark A. Morgan - from May 2019 to July 2019. Tony Pham - from August 2020 to December 2020. Jonathan Fahey - from December 2020 to January 2021. Tae Johnson - from January 13, 2021 to January 20, 2021 (Trump administration); continued as acting director in the Biden administration (see below).
Actions Following a presidential campaign that centered immigration policy, Donald Trump enacted in his first presidency (2017–2021) a hardline immigration policy intended to reduce immigration. Shortly after taking office, he signed an executive order to increase ICE's staffing by 10,000 people, and to vastly expand ICE's immigration enforcement powers. While ICE largely prioritized people charged with serious crimes during the Obama administration, Trump's first administration directed the agency to target anybody it believed had entered the United States illegally. Subsequently, the number of encounters and arrests performed by ICE increased substantially, including the encounters and arrests of U.S. citizens. ICE began engaging in high-profile raids at places of employment, places of worship, and places of education. By 2020, growing numbers of Democratic lawmakers and progressive figures called for the abolition of ICE and an overhaul of the United States immigration system due to ICE's controversial practices.
In 2018, a total of 19 HSI special agents in charge or SACs (who are the senior most officials in each investigative division) sent a letter to DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and asked to be formally separated from ICE. These 19 SACs explained that HSI's investigative mission was repeatedly being hamstrung by ICE's civil immigration enforcement mission, saying that many jurisdictions limited their co-operation with HSI because of its linkage to the politically charged activity of ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which is also housed under ICE. These senior leaders requested HSI be restructured as a stand-alone agency analogous to the Secret Service. It was also stated "No U.S. Department of Justice law enforcement agency is paired with another disparate entity, i.e., the FBI is not paired with the Bureau of Prisons or DEA." This letter was ultimately ignored by the administration.
Protests
Numerous protests emerged across the nation in response to the first Trump administration's ICE policies. Many of the protesters occupied areas around ICE facilities in hopes of disrupting operations. The Occupy ICE movement began on June 17, 2018, outside Portland, Oregon. It initially began as a vigil for the people suffering from ICE policies but spontaneously grew into a larger movement as more people showed up. The movement ultimately spread into other major cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, and New York. As the movement grew, they faced counter protesters and arrests. As Occupy ICE groups spread to different cities, there was also a greater amount of coordination between them.
Other grassroots protests sprung up across the nation as well. On August 1, 2019, a month-long peaceful protest event was started outside the San Francisco ICE office, where protesters beat drums and demanded that family separation at the border be stopped. In addition to blocking ICE facilities, protesters are also protesting technology companies such as Microsoft for providing technology to aid ICE. One such instance of this was the sit-in at the Microsoft store on 5th Avenue in NYC led by Close the Camps NYC on September 14, 2019. In the 2020 protests and riots in Portland, Oregon, the local ICE office had its window broken.
20212025: Biden administration
The Biden administration retained Johnson as acting director of ICE; Johnson retired in July 2023. In April 2021, Biden had nominated Ed Gonzalez for the position of director of ICE; Gonzalez withdrew in June 2022 when it was clear that the Senate would not confirm the nomination. Johnson was followed as acting director by Patrick Lechleitner, who held that position until the end of the administration.
During Biden's presidency, approximately 4 million removals and expulsions were recorded at the U.S.–Mexico border. The totals included multiple crossings made by the same individuals, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.