In the early days of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), long before the brutal raids and mass detentions, advocates warned of what the agency might become.
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as Congress debated the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), civil rights advocates argued that immigration enforcement would be distorted — and weaponized — by its merger with the national security state. As civil rights lawyer Katherine Culliton-González told Congress at an April 2003 hearing, the move threatened to label “all immigrants, including millions of legal immigrants, as suspected terrorists.”
In response to such concerns, Congress created an unusually far-reaching internal watchdog office for DHS and its various arms, including ICE: the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
But today, that office, which is charged with inspecting ICE detention facilities and investigating officers’ use of force, among other duties, has been all but eliminated, even amid mounting concerns about ICE operating with impunity and without regard to civil rights.
With its budget slashed by more than 75 percent, the watchdog agency has been left with a skeleton crew of nine people, down from 150 at the beginning of 2025. It’s now run by a former adviser to the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank who also holds another full-time job as deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security.
Meanwhile, ICE’s budget has quadrupled.
In the fall, the Guardian reported on warnings from experts and staff that the agency’s demise could open the doors to ICE impunity. Last month, court filings revealed that the office had received nearly six thousand civil rights complaints since March — but had issued no recommendations to officials in response, compared with the hundreds of policy recommendations it issued in 2023.
“It breaks my heart,” said Culliton-González, who led the office under the Biden administration….
Auteur: Katya Schwenk
