The Controversy and Reform of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement

ICE’s Mission and Directorates: Budget and Functions

In today’s local news and media, there are often news reports consisting of concerns with ice. To those who do not know what ICE is, it stands for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It happens to be a law enforcement agency of the federal government of the United States tasked to enforce the immigration laws of the United States and to investigate the criminal and terrorist activity of foreign Nationals residing in the United States. Lately, there has been much controversy going on with ice wrongfully separating families. So much controversy to-the-point news headlines had made it to the news under “abolish ICE.” yet, what today’s society fails to understand is that ICE is very much needed, yet should be reformed.

The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement is an agency that has an annual budget of approximately six billion dollars, all devoted to three separate operational directorates. 3 in which our homeland security investigations (HSI), enforcement and removal operations (ERO), and Office of the principal legal advisor (OPAL). There also happens to be a fourth directorate which is management and administration (M&A), which overall supports the three operational branches to advance the Ice mission. Each directorate has its specific duty to perform. For example, enforcement and removal operations specifically Target Public Safety threats. Public Safety threats generally refer to convicted criminal aliens in gang members, as well as individuals who have violated the nation’s immigration laws. That also includes those who illegally entered the country after being removed.

HSI’s Global Reach and Legal Expertise

Homeland security investigations, on the other hand, is the principal investigative component that consists of more than 8,500 employees. Many of those employees are assigned to more than 200 cities throughout the U.S. and as well as more than 60 offices in more than 45 countries. Homeland Security Investigations deal with criminal investigations that protect the U.S. against threats to its national security and bring to justice those seeking to exploit U.S. customs and immigration laws worldwide.

They also have the legal authority to investigate all types of cross-border criminal activity. Actions that include smuggling and cross-border criminal activity, and financial crimes. The Office of the Principal Legal Advisor consists of over 1,100 attorneys. They deal with the actual immigration removal cases, including those against criminal aliens, terrorists, and human rights abusers. They are the ones who take everything to court.

Now as for ICE in its current situation, many have disputed with ICE. It has come to the point where Abolish ICE has become a new political movement. The movement gained traction in June 2018 due to controversy over the Trump administration’s family separation policy. According to sources, as of “May, 2,342 children have been separated from their parents after crossing the Southern U.S. border, according to the Department of Homeland Security, as part of a new immigration strategy by the Trump administration that has prompted widespread outcry.”

ICE’s Evolving Family Detention Policies

President Trump signed an executive order reversing his policy of separating families and decided to replace it with a policy of detaining entire families together, including children, but ignoring legal time limits on the detention of minors. According to the president himself, ‘It is also the policy of this Administration to maintain family unity, including by detaining alien families together and consistent with law and available resources.’ It did provide an exception for when authorities believed that keeping the family together would be harmful to the child. Until recently, when it was realized that usually minors who crossed into the U.S. cross alone. Therefore creating another subject of matter. Now it also includes children who have been separated from their families by authorities, including much younger children.

Overall, although ICE has created much controversy, it would be wrong to fully abolish ICE. ICE has an overall important purpose. Its purpose is to prevent illegal immigration as well as to cut down threats to homeland security. If ICE were to longer exist, there would be much more crime occurring and impossible to stop. ICE helps prevent crime from over-exaggerating. Therefore ICE should stay yet be reformed. Because there are instances in which ICE is responsible for the wrongful doing of separating families.

References:

1. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (n.d.). About ICE. https://www.ice.gov/about
2. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (n.d.). ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). https://www.ice.gov/hsi
3. The Washington Post. (2018, June 15). ‘Abolish ICE’: The roots of the new Democratic litmus test. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/06/29/abolish-ice-the-roots-of-the-new-democratic-litmus-test/
4. American Immigration Council. (2019, July 2). The Trump Administration’s Family Separation Policy: Eight Months Later. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/trump-administrations-family-separation-policy-eight-months-later
5. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2019). Fiscal Year 2019 ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Report. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/19_1211_Memo_ICE-ERO-FY2019Enforcement-RemovalOperations.pdf