Stung by resistance from sanctuary cities, the Biden administration moved Tuesday to rebrand the government’s immigration law detective force, saying Homeland Security Investigations does far more than pursue immigration cases.
While it remains part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — the deportation agency — HSI said it wants to be known as wide-ranging investigators with a global reach and the power to pursue cases ranging from drugs and gangs to sex and labor trafficking to terrorism to counterfeit goods.
The rebrand began with a new address, HSI.gov, which is no longer associated with ICE but is now hosted as part of the main DHS.gov site.
“The new website is a reflection of HSI’s commitment to its mission and core values in fighting global threats and protecting American lives,” said Katrina W. Berger, the head of HSI. “With more than 400 criminal statutes to enforce, HSI’s broad and diverse criminal investigative mission has an immediate impact on public safety and the security of our communities.”
The bureaucratic reshuffle is not the full divorce from ICE that some HSI agents have been agitating for. That would likely take an act of Congress, which created HSI as part of ICE during the government reorganization after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
HSI agents have complained for years about being part of ICE and in particular being associated with the deportation side of the agency, known as Enforcement and Removal Operations or ERO.
Agents say that sanctuary jurisdictions refuse to cooperate with HSI on investigations, even ones related to gangs or other non-immigration areas, because they don’t want the stigma of working with ICE. Some jurisdictions even have laws limiting cooperation.
ERO employees said they wished HSI would have stepped up to defend other ICE colleagues. One described HSI’s rebrand as a show of “petulance.”
The head of ERO, Daniel A. Bible, wrote a message to his employees signaling some displeasure with the rebrand.
“ERO has and always will continue to focus its decision making on its most important attribute: each of you,” he wrote. “I do not intend to conduct a wholesale rebranding of ERO. ERO operates with professionalism, honor, compassion and integrity. Our mission will not be swayed by political theater or media rhetoric, and our identity will remain steadfast.”
Skepticism of ICE escalated in the Trump years, fueled by left-wing politicians who led a “Defund ICE” campaign that included some of the party’s 2020 presidential hopefuls.
Then-Sen. Kamala Harris didn’t call for full defunding but did say the agency needed a shakeup, and at one point compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan. She said there was a “perception” that ICE used the same tactics as the murderous terrorist organization.
She also suggested a racial component, saying ICE’s “fear and intimidation” was particularly acute for migrants from Mexico and Central America.
Frustrated agents confronted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the perceptions early in his tenure, asking about the possibility of splitting HSI out from ICE.
He suggested the issue wasn’t HSI’s work in ICE, but rather erroneous views of ICE’s work that were fueling the problem.
“As difficult as it is for the HSI workforce to conduct its investigations in a jurisdiction that will not work with us let me say, imagine the work of ERO and the challenges it has,” he told employees in a tele-town hall. “I think we have a lot of education to do and I think we have a lot of educating to do not only with city officials in terms of what we do and how we do it. But I think we have a lot of educating to do of the American public.”
One ICE employee said HSI has an “identity crisis” and is still trying to figure out its role. Its cases often could also be investigated by the FBI or the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Jon Feere, who served as ICE’s chief of staff in the Trump administration, said if the goal was to get better cooperation out of cities and counties that object to immigration enforcement, HSI may be disappointed.
“All sanctuary jurisdictions are well aware that HSI is part of ICE and that HSI has the authority to enforce immigration laws,” he said. “A new web page isn’t going to change these jurisdictions’ hostility to immigration enforcement.”
He said if anything, the border chaos under President Biden has created more immigration work for HSI with an explosion of migrant child labor cases, as well as ongoing immigration fraud.
“HSI has a lot of work within the immigration space on its plate,” he said. “No new web page is going to change that.”
HSI’s new website downplays immigration work. Its “What we investigate” section lists 14 areas of expertise, only one of them centered on immigration, and in that case the focus was on the cartels that run smuggling operations.
HSI said that in fiscal year 2023, it made 33,108 criminal arrests, seized 1.2 million pounds of narcotics and helped in cases involving 731 victims of human trafficking.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.