Timeline: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

A thumbnail reader’s guide to ICE and its actions

Last updated: July 8, 2025 at 10 a.m. ET

---

Over two decades, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) evolved from a bureaucratic reorganization after 9/11 into a sprawling enforcement agency, shaped by political forces that weaponized immigration policy. Under Project 2025 and the Trump administration, ICE has now been gifted a $65 billion war chest through 2029, elevating it beyond mere immigration enforcement. Alongside CBP and border wall funding, total immigration enforcement funding exceeds $100 billion, positioning ICE and its partner agencies collectively as one of the world's largest paramilitary forces. Today, ICE operates as a domestic paramilitary force, with unprecedented funding, diminished oversight, and sweeping new authorities, poised to reshape America’s landscape of civil liberties. The timeline below charts the major events and policy decisions that transformed ICE into the lawless enforcement arm of Project 2025.

---

Nov 25, 2002

• Congress enacts the Homeland Security Act.

  • President George W. Bush’s administration’s plan dissolves the INS and Customs Service into three DHS agencies—ICE, CBP, and USCIS.

  • The move represents the most significant government reorganization since 1947.

Mar 1, 2003

• ICE officially launches under DHS.

  • INS’s criminal investigators merge with Customs Service personnel into two arms: Enforcement & Removal Operations (ERO) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

2003–2006

• ICE rolls out major enforcement initiatives.

  • Operation Endgame aims to eliminate all removable aliens by 2012.

  • Operation Community Shield works to arrest gang-linked immigrants.

  • Secure Communities is tasked with identifying criminal immigrants in local jails.

2009–2012

• ICE expands courtroom arrests and detention:

  • Establishes Criminal Alien Removal Initiative, featuring 129 fugitive teams and 37,371 arrests in 2012.

  • The agency opens its first dedicated civil detention facility in Karnes, Texas.

Apr 14, 2017

• Under Donald J. Trump’s first term, ICE shutters its Detention Policy and Planning Office.

  • The move mitigates oversight of detention center conditions.

Jan 21–23, 2025

• Project 2025 leadership assumes control.

  • DHS rescinds “sensitive locations” policy.

    • The change empowers ICE to arrest at schools, hospitals, and churches .

  • ICE conducts coordinated raids in sanctuary cities (NYC, Boston), arresting over 538 individuals, including some mistakenly detained .