U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is often described as a young agency, created in 2003 as part of the Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But the work now carried out by ICE traces back much further.
The agency’s roots are tied to two of the federal government’s earliest responsibilities: collecting customs revenue and enforcing immigration law. In 1789, Congress passed the Tariff Act, allowing the new government to tax imports to help fund the country. The Treasury Department was created that same year, led by Alexander Hamilton.
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As the country expanded, customs officials took on more enforcement work at ports of entry and along the nation’s borders. By the late 1800s, immigration had increased sharply as people fled war, famine, political unrest and economic hardship in search of opportunity in the United States.
That growth led Congress to pass new immigration laws, including measures aimed at human trafficking, child exploitation and forced labor. The federal government also began collecting a tax on arriving immigrants.
As those laws became more complex, immigration duties were eventually separated from customs work through the creation of the Bureau of Immigration. Customs officials continued focusing on border security, import enforcement and smuggling.
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During Prohibition, that included stopping alcohol from being brought into the country illegally.
For decades, customs and immigration enforcement operated through separate federal agencies. That changed after Sept. 11, when DHS was created and ICE was formed by combining key customs and immigration enforcement functions.
Today, ICE investigates transnational criminal organizations, drug smuggling, human trafficking, cybercrime, child exploitation, intellectual property violations and immigration offenses. The agency also arrests and removes people unlawfully present in the U.S., including those with final removal orders or additional criminal convictions.
ICE now enforces nearly 450 federal criminal statutes and employs more than 20,000 people in the United States and abroad.
More than two decades after its creation, ICE’s mission remains tied to the same responsibilities that shaped its predecessor agencies: enforcing federal law, securing the border and protecting the country’s economic and national security interests.
