ICE Was Created in 2003. Here's What America Used Before It.
Quick Answer
When was ICE created? Immigration and Customs Enforcement was created on March 1, 2003, under the Homeland Security Act. It replaced the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which had handled immigration enforcement since 1933. Before the INS, there was the Bureau of Immigration, created in 1891 specifically to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. In 2025, the Trump administration revoked protections against ICE arrests at schools, hospitals, and churches. Community arrests increased 600% in one year. The agency is holding 73,000 people in detention. The name has changed twice. The approach is 140 years old.
As of 2026, ICE is holding 73,000 people in detention facilities across the United States. Community arrests are up 600% from one year ago. The agency has permission to arrest people at schools, hospitals, and churches. Its detention budget in 2025 was over 400% higher than the year before.
ICE was created on March 1, 2003. The approach it is using goes back to 1882.
The INS
Before ICE, immigration enforcement was handled by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS was created in 1933 by merging two older agencies: the Bureau of Immigration and the Bureau of Naturalization. It started inside the Department of Labor. In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt moved it to the Department of Justice, where it stayed until it was abolished in 2003.
For 70 years, the INS was the face of federal immigration enforcement in America. It issued visas. It processed citizenship applications. It conducted raids. It ran detention centers. It deported people. It also ran Operation Wetback, which is worth its own section.
By the time the INS was dissolved, it had a backlog of 3.8 million unprocessed applications and a documented record of civil rights abuses. A government report found that over a third of its detention facilities failed to meet the INS's own standards. Then came September 11, and the conversation shifted from "the INS is failing immigrants" to "the INS failed to stop terrorists."
Before the INS: the Bureau of Immigration
Before the INS, there was the Bureau of Immigration. Congress created it with the Immigration Act of 1891. Before 1891, immigration inspection was handled at the state level, inconsistently, and Congress had a specific enforcement problem it needed to solve at the federal level.
That problem was the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. It was the first federal law in American history to ban immigration based on race and national origin. It suspended the entry of Chinese laborers. It barred Chinese immigrants already in the country from becoming naturalized citizens. It created a documentation system to track who was allowed to stay. Initially, the U.S. Customs Service enforced it. When Congress created the Bureau of Immigration in 1891, enforcement was transferred there.
The Bureau of Immigration existed in significant part to implement racial exclusion. This was not a side function. Chinese Inspectors were a distinct category of officer within the agency. Their job was to verify documentation, conduct interrogations, and deport anyone who couldn't prove legal entry. The same bureau that processed European immigrants arriving at Ellis Island ran a parallel system designed to keep Chinese workers out.
The Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor in 1886. The Chinese Exclusion Act was already four years old. The Bureau of Immigration showed up five years after that.
The exclusion laws were extended and expanded over the following decades. The Immigration Act of 1924 established national-origin quotas that effectively excluded most Asian and Southern and Eastern European immigrants. The Chinese Exclusion Act itself wasn't repealed until 1943, when China became a World War II ally and Congress decided the optics were bad.
Operation Wetback
In 1954, the INS ran the largest mass deportation operation in American history. President Eisenhower appointed retired Army General Joseph Swing to run the INS. Swing launched what the government officially named "Operation Wetback." Not a nickname. Not what journalists called it. The official government name, appearing in federal documents, used a racial slur.
The operation began June 9, 1954. Agents conducted military-style raids across the Southwest: farms, neighborhoods, transportation hubs, workplaces. On the first day, they apprehended nearly 5,000 people. The government claimed over one million deportations that year. Independent historians put the actual figure closer to 300,000.
Deportees were transported by bus, train, boat, and plane to locations deep inside Mexico, specifically to make return harder. Some were loaded onto ships at Port Isabel, Texas, and sent to Veracruz on the Gulf Coast. Conditions on those boats were compared to those of slave ships by journalists at the time. Several people died during transport. The operation continued.
U.S. citizens were among those deported. Mexican American citizens who couldn't produce documentation fast enough, or who were caught in neighborhood raids, were removed to a country they had never lived in. The INS acknowledged some of these errors. It kept going.
Why the name changed in 2003
The 9/11 hijackers had been in the United States on valid visas. All 19 of them. The INS had tracked their visa status but had not shared information with the FBI. Two had been flagged by the State Department before they entered. They entered anyway.
Congress passed the Homeland Security Act on November 25, 2002. It created the Department of Homeland Security by merging 22 federal agencies. The INS was abolished. Its functions were split into three new agencies: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles applications and naturalization; Customs and Border Protection, which handles the border; and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles interior enforcement.
ICE inherited the INS's detention facilities, its field agents, and its operations. It also absorbed the investigative division of the U.S. Customs Service. The INS's final budget in 2002 was $6.2 billion across all functions. ICE launched in 2003 with $3.3 billion for interior enforcement alone. By 2023, that had grown to over $9 billion.
The 9/11 attacks became the justification for a more powerful enforcement agency with a national security mandate. What the new agency actually spent most of its time doing looked a lot like what the INS had spent most of its time doing.
What Trump made it
On January 20, 2025, the Trump administration revoked the policy that had prohibited ICE from making arrests at schools, hospitals, churches, funerals, and public demonstrations. The policy had been in place since 2011. It was gone on day one.
At-large arrests in American communities, meaning arrests outside of border encounters, courtrooms, and jails, increased by 600% in the first year. The number of people with no criminal record held in ICE detention on any given day increased by 2,450%. ICE was holding 73,000 people in detention by January 2026, up from about 40,000 when Trump took office.
Congress approved $45 billion for ICE detention in July 2025. The agency's detention budget for fiscal year 2025 was more than 400% higher than 2024. The administration is building toward 135,000 detention beds by 2029.
The Trump administration sent people to CECOT, El Salvador's maximum-security mega-prison, without deportation hearings. They sent people to Guantanamo Bay, the military detention facility in Cuba originally built to hold terrorism suspects after 9/11, and converted part of it into an ICE processing facility. The U.S. spent $73 million per year to operate it. Fewer than 400 beds were occupied at any point, a facility running at under 2% capacity. The administration also deported people to countries they are not citizens of: Moldova, Uganda, Eswatini.
In April 2025, the Pentagon was given jurisdiction over 200 miles of the southern border across California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. An immigration enforcement agency now operates with military infrastructure and a military zone.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882. The Bureau of Immigration was created in 1891 to enforce it. The INS deported U.S. citizens in 1954 under an operation named with a racial slur. ICE was created in 2003 and has deported U.S. citizens. The Trump administration sent people to military detention facilities and foreign prisons without hearings.
The name has changed three times. The budget has grown from nothing to $14 billion. The approach is the same one Congress chose in 1882 when it decided that some people, defined by where they came from, are not allowed to be here.
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Frequently Asked Questions
When was ICE created?
ICE was created on March 1, 2003, as part of the Department of Homeland Security under the Homeland Security Act, signed November 25, 2002. It was the largest reorganization of the federal government since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947. ICE was formed by merging the interior enforcement division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service with the investigative division of the U.S. Customs Service.
What was the INS?
The Immigration and Naturalization Service was the federal agency responsible for immigration enforcement from 1933 to 2003. Created by merging the Bureau of Immigration and the Bureau of Naturalization, it handled visa processing, naturalization applications, deportation, and interior enforcement as part of the Department of Justice. When dissolved, it had a backlog of 3.8 million unprocessed applications. Its functions were split among USCIS, CBP, and ICE.
What was Operation Wetback?
Operation Wetback was the official government name for an INS mass deportation campaign that ran from June through October 1954 under the Eisenhower administration. General Joseph Swing oversaw military-style raids across the Southwest. The government claimed over one million deportations; independent historians estimate closer to 300,000. Deportees were transported to remote areas of Mexico by bus, boat, and plane. U.S. citizens were among those deported. The name used a racial slur and appeared in official federal documents.
What was the Bureau of Immigration?
The Bureau of Immigration was the first dedicated federal immigration enforcement agency, created by the Immigration Act of 1891. Congress federalized immigration enforcement primarily to implement the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 more consistently. Chinese Inspectors within the Bureau verified documentation and deported anyone who couldn't prove legal entry. The Bureau was merged with the Bureau of Naturalization in 1933 to create the INS. Its founding purpose was racial exclusion.
What has ICE done under Trump since 2025?
On his first day in office, Trump revoked the 2011 policy prohibiting ICE arrests at schools, hospitals, churches, and other sensitive locations. By January 2026, community arrests had increased 600% and the number of people with no criminal record in ICE detention had increased 2,450%. ICE was holding 73,000 people in detention, up from 40,000 at the start of the administration. Congress approved $45 billion for ICE detention in 2025, with plans for 135,000 detention beds by 2029. The administration sent people to El Salvador's CECOT prison without deportation hearings and used Guantanamo Bay as an ICE processing facility.
Did the Chinese Exclusion Act create federal immigration enforcement?
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first federal law to ban immigration based on race and national origin. U.S. Customs enforced it for the first decade. When Congress created the Bureau of Immigration in 1891, Chinese Exclusion enforcement was transferred there. The founding of a dedicated federal immigration enforcement agency is directly tied to Congress implementing racial exclusion as immigration policy. The Chinese Exclusion Act was not repealed until 1943.
