Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, led law enforcement agencies at every level of government to reevaluate their strategies with regard to preventing future terrorism and to consider their preparedness in the event of other attacks. Perhaps no other agency was more sensitive to the events of September 11 than the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). All of the hijackers were aliens as well as technically in violation of immigration laws. In response to the attacks, President George W. Bush and Congress created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on March 1, 2003. Special agents of the INS and Customs Service were transferred to DHS under the Border and Transportation Security Directorate. Within that directorate the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was designed to be the primary agency to enforce the immigration laws inside the United States. Although there are five major directorates within DHS—Border and Transportation Security, Emergency Preparedness and Response, Science and Technology, Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, and Management—ICE retains a strong legacy from INS investigators and their enforcement of the immigration laws.

The growth of the United States is based on immigration. Between 1820 and 2002, 68,217,481 persons legally entered the county as immigrants. The law defines immigrants as those persons with lawful permanent resident status who are permitted to live and work in the United States as long as they establish residence. Immigrants may also leave the United States and return in full status as long as they do not abandon their residence here. Immigrants are also eligible to apply for citizenship (naturalization) if they have good moral character and have resided continuously in the United States for at least five years after their lawful admission as immigrants. The five-year waiting period is reduced if they are married to citizens or have served in the U.S. military. In 2002, at total of 1,063,732 persons entered the county as immigrants.

There are other categories of persons in the United States who are neither citizens nor lawful immigrants. Nonimmigrants are temporary visitors who make a lawful admission through a designated port of entry in the United States. Examples of nonimmigrants include aliens who are visitors for pleasure or business, temporary workers, students, exchange visitors, foreign government representatives, and diplomats. By far, most of the nonimmigrants enter as visitors for pleasure (tourists) or business. There were 27.9 million documented nonimmigrant entries to the United States in 2002.

The are also millions of people who have entered the country illegally and who remain for various lengths of time. In 2000, INS estimated that there were about 7 million illegal aliens living in the United States and further estimated that about 69% [Page 563]of these unauthorized persons were from Mexico. However, illegal aliens are from every country in the world. Illegal aliens are those persons who are in the country in violation of the immigration laws. Many of these illegal aliens simply crossed the southwest border without inspection and were smuggled into the United States. Some of these illegal aliens were lawfully admitted as nonimmigrants and stayed longer than they were allowed; others were admitted as legal permanent residents but were convicted of certain crimes that make them deportable, usually to the country from which they arrived, but in some cases to a third county. A main concern of ICE is that some of these illegal aliens may very well be terrorists. It is difficult to estimate hidden populations, but estimates in 2003 ranged anywhere from 8 million to as many as 11 million illegal aliens living inside the United States. Such high numbers of law violators pose a dilemma for enforcement of the immigration laws.

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