U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Structure

• Director (until July 2010 the title has been "Assistant Secretary")^[13]
  • Deputy Director
    • Enforcement and Removal Operations
      • Removal Division
      • Secure Communities and Enforcement Division
      • Immigration Health Services Division
      • Mission Support Division
      • Detention Management Division
      • Local Field Offices
    • Homeland Security Investigations
      • Domestic Operations Division
      • Intelligence Division
      • International Operations Division
      • Mission Support
      • National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center
      • National Security Investigations Division
    • Management and Administration

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)

HSI Special Response Team (SRT) members training using armored vehicle at Fort Benning in Georgia.

HSI special agents investigate a range of issues that threaten the national security of the United States such as human rights violations, human smuggling, art theft, human trafficking, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, document and benefit fraud, the manufacturing and sale of counterfeit immigration and identity documents, transnational gangs, financial crimes including money laundering and bulk cash smuggling, trade-based money laundering (including trade finance and Kimberley Process investigations), computer crimes, including the production and transportation of child pornography via the Internet, import/export enforcement, trafficking of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and other merchandise, and international Cultural Property and Antiquities crimes. HSI agents can be requested to provide security for VIPs, and also augment the U.S. Secret Service during overtaxed times such as special security events and elections.

HSI was formerly known as the ICE Office of Investigations (OI). HSI agents have the statutory authority to enforce the Immigration and Nationality Act (Title 8), U.S. customs laws (Title 19), general federal crimes (Title 18), the Controlled Substances Act (Title 21), as well as Titles 5, 6, 12, 22, 26, 28, 31, 46, 49, and 50 of the U.S. Code. HSI has more than 6,500 special agents, making it the largest investigative entity in the Department of Homeland Security and the second largest in the federal government.

Intelligence

The Office of Intelligence is a subcomponent of HSI that employs a variety of special agents and Intelligence Research Specialists to facilitate HSI's tactical and strategic intelligence demands. Collectively, these intelligence professionals collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence for use by the operational elements of DHS. The Office of Intelligence works closely with the intelligence components of other federal, state, and local agencies. Many HSI field offices assign intelligence analysts to specific groups, such as financial crimes, counter-proliferation, narcotics, or document fraud; or, alternatively, they can be assigned to a residential intelligence unit, known as a Field Intelligence Group (FIG). HSI agents assigned to FIGs generally focus on Human Intelligence (HUMINT) collection.

International Operations

special agents aiding with rescue effort for the 2010 Haiti earthquake

International Operations, formerly known as the Office of International Affairs (OIA), is a subcomponent of HSI with agents stationed in 60 locations around the world. HSI's foreign offices, known as Attaché Offices, work with foreign governments to identify and combat transnational criminal organizations before they threaten the United States. IO also facilitates domestic HSI investigations by providing intelligence from host countries, conducting collateral investigations, and facilitating international investigations conducted by field offices within the United States.

Special Response Teams

Seventeen HSI field offices maintain a Special Response Team (SRT) that operates as a federal SWAT element for the office's area of responsibility (AOR).^[14] SRT was founded under the U.S. Customs Service as the Warrant Entry and Tactical Team (WETT) and were renamed to SRT in 1998.^[14] The SRT handle HSI's high-risk arrest and search warrants, barricaded subjects, rural area operations, VIP protection, sniper coverage for high-risk operations, and security for National Security Events. HSI's active SRTs are located in Tampa, Miami, Arizona (Phoenix), New Orleans, Houston, New York, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Antonio, San Juan, Detroit, San Francisco, El Paso, Chicago, San Diego and Washington, D.C. There is also a team of instructors and coordinators stationed full-time in Columbus, Georgia. These teams primarily deploy to handle high-risk operations, but also assist in events such as Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake 2010, and other natural disasters around the globe.

SRT is a collateral duty open to HSI agents assigned to an office with a certified team. To qualify, candidates must pass a physical fitness test, qualify with multiple firearms by shooting 90% or better in full tactical gear, and pass an oral interview process. If a candidate passes these stages and is voted on the local team, they are then designated "Green Team" members and allowed to train with the certified team members. Green Team members are eventually sent to the SRT Initial Certification Course at the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs, Tactical Operations Unit (OFTP/TOU)Fort Benning, Georgia, where they must pass additional physical fitness, firearms, scenario-based and written assessments.^[15] Out of approximately 6,500 special agents, there are currently only approximately 250 certified SRT members nationwide.

HSI SRTs often conduct training exercises with various federal, state and local teams, and also assist other teams during national events or large-scale operations that require multiple high-risk scenarios to be conducted simultaneously. The working relationship between the SRTs and the U.S. Department of Defense's U.S. Special Operations Command has led to SOCOM providing the SRTs with excess Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs), firearms, and other gear designed for the U.S. Tier One groups.

Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)

ICE ERO officers deporting a man to Mexico

ERO is responsible for enforcing the nation's immigration laws and ensuring the departure of removable immigrants from the United States. ERO uses its deportation officers to identify, arrest, and remove immigrants who violate U.S. immigration law. Deportation officers are responsible for the transportation and detention of immigrants in ICE custody to include the removal of immigrants to their country of origin. Deportation officers prosecute immigrants for violations of U.S. immigration and criminal law, monitor cases during deportation proceedings, supervise released immigrants, and remove immigrants from the United States.^[16] Deportation officers operate strategically placed Fugitive Operations Teams whose function is to locate, apprehend, and remove immigrants who have absconded from immigration proceedings and remain in the United States with outstanding warrants for deportation. ERO manages the Secure Communities program which identifies removable immigrants located in jails and prisons. Fingerprints submitted as part of the normal criminal arrest and booking process will automatically check both the Integrated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division and the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) of the Department of Homeland Security's US-VISIT Program.

ERO was formerly known as the Office of Detention and Removal Operations (DRO).

Former units

The Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) was aligned into ICE shortly after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. On October 16, 2005, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff officially approved the transfer of the Federal Air Marshal Service from the Bureau of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the TSA as part of a broader departmental reorganization to align functions consistent with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "Second Stage Review" findings for:

• consolidating and strengthening aviation law enforcement and security at the Federal level;
• creating a common approach to stakeholder outreach; and
• improving the coordination and efficiency of aviation security operations.

As part of this realignment, the Director of the Federal Air Marshal Service also became the Assistant Administrator for the TSA Office of Law Enforcement (OLE), which houses nearly all TSA law enforcement services.

The Federal Protective Service (FPS) was moved from the General Services Administration (GSA) to ICE upon the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The FPS was later moved out of ICE to the National Protection Programs Directorate.

Originally a part of the U.S. Customs Service's Office of Investigations, the Office of Air and Marine (then called the Air and Marine Interdiction Division) was transferred to ICE in 2003 during the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, becoming the Office of Air and Marine Operations. Due in part to a 500 million dollar budgetary dispute between CBP and ICE, in 2004 ICE Air and Marine Operations was transferred to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP Air and Marine still works closely with ICE to support the agency's domestic and international law enforcement operations.^{[17][18][19][20]}

The Office of Detention Policy and Planning was responsible developing and maintaining ICE's National Detention Standards, which set out detailed rules for how immigration detainees were to be treated differently than criminal inmates.^[21] In April 2017, President Donald Trump decided to close the office and to stop including the standards in new jail contracts.^[21]

Deaths in detention

From October 2003 to 2007, a total of 107 deaths occurred in ICE detention centers. In January 2010, The New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) obtained documents detailing the circumstances of these deaths, under the Freedom of Information Act. "The documents show how officials—some still in key positions—used their role as overseers to cover up evidence of mistreatment, deflect scrutiny by the news media or prepare exculpatory public statements after gathering facts that pointed to substandard care or abuse," The New York Times reported.^[37] The deaths in detention included the following cases:

• Boubacar Bah, a 52-year-old tailor from Guinea, was left in an isolation cell for more than 13 hours after falling and suffering a head fracture before an ambulance was called. His family was not notified for five days of his injury.^[38] A video shows Bah in the medical unit, before medical personnel sent him to the isolation cell. In the tape, his hands are handcuffed behind his back, he is face down, and he calls out repeatedly in his native language, Fulani: "Help, they are killing me!" Telephone and email records show that ten agency managers based in Newark and Washington discussed how to avoid the cost of his care and unwanted media attention. They considered sending Bah back to Guinea and reviewing his canceled work permit to see if it would be possible to get Medicaid or disability benefits. Eventually, they decided to release him to cousins in New York who objected that they had no way to care for Bah; however, days before this release was planned, Bah died.^[37]
• Nery Romero was a 22-year-old Salvadoran immigrant with no previous history of mental illness who committed suicide in his cell in the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey. At the time of his detention, he was recovering from surgery in which metal pins had been placed in his leg, seriously broken in a motorcycle accident, and was taking strong prescription painkillers. According to Romero's cellmates and family, authorities failed to provide Romero with painkillers despite his repeated requests.^[37] In a letter written to his mother shortly before his death, Romero stated: "I'm in hell. They don't give me nothing for my pain."^[39]
• Sandra Kenley of Barbados, who did not receive treatment for a uterine fibroid tumor, died at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, Virginia in December 2006. An autopsy determined the cause of her death was acute coronary insufficiency due to hypertensive cardiovascular disease.^[40][39]
• Abdoulai Sali died of an untreated kidney ailment in the Piedmont Regional Jail in Virginia.^[39]
• Young Sook Kim died at the New Mexico Regional Jail in Albuquerque of pancreatic cancer in September 2006. She had asked for weeks to receive medical care, and died the day after she was taken to a hospital.^[41]

Corporate contracts

Engineering and construction firm Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) released a press statement on January 24, 2006, that the company had been awarded a no-bid contingency contract from the Department of Homeland Security to support its ICE facilities in the event of an emergency. The maximum total value of the contract is $385 million and consists of a one-year base period with four one-year options. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005. The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to expand existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, the company said.

Sexual abuse

The Intercept published a report by the DHS Office of Inspector General revealing that 1,224 sexual abuse complaints while in immigration custody were filed between January 2010 and June 2017. Contrary to ICE's claims, only 2% of these complaints were investigated.^[43]

Record number of deportations

Between 2009 and 2016, the Barack Obama administration oversaw the deporting of a record 2.4 million immigrants, earning him the nickname "Deporter-In-Chief" by Janet Murguía, the president of National Council of La Raza.^[44][45] According to ICE data, about 40% of those deported by ICE in 2015 had no criminal conviction, while majority of those convicted were guilty of minor charges.^[46]

Separation of migrant children from their families

A protest against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Philadelphia, June 2018

As part of the 2018 Trump administration's zero tolerance policy, nearly 3,000^[47] minors were separated from their parents while trying to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border and placed in detention centers.^[48][49] Rolling Stone likened these centers to "prisons" while The Houston Chronicle reported that a movement swelled online to call them "concentration camps."^[50][51] Similarly, former First Lady of the United States Laura Bush compared the images of the centers to U.S. Japanese internment camps during the Second World War.^[52] 16 out of 34^[53] of the centers located in Texas had previously been cited by Texas officials for more than 150 health violations.^[54] The former head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, John Sandweg, was critical of child separation, telling NBC News, "You could easily end up in a situation where the gap between a parent's deportation and a child's deportation is years," and that many children might never see their parents again.^[55]

Comparable international agencies

• Australian Border Force
• Canada Border Services Agency
• Immigration Enforcement - a Home Office command in the United Kingdom
• Customs Surveillance Service—Spain (only customs enforcement; immigration issues are handled by the standard National Police and Guardia Civil)
• Frontex—European Union (Schengen Area)
• Federal Migration Service (FMS)—Russia