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.
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 "la migra".
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. 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.
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