ICE consists of three directorates to accomplish the agency’s mission, including Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Management and Administration (M&A).
ICE's primary mission is to promote homeland security and public safety through the criminal and civil enforcement of federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration.
Catch up on ICE’s most popular news stories from the week ending March 25, 2016
ICE executes its mission through the enforcement of more than 400 federal statutes, focusing on preventing terrorism, immigration enforcement and combating transnational crime.
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The primary mission of the Homeland Security Investigations’ (HSI) Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST) is to combat emerging and existing Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCO) by employing the full range of federal, state, local, tribal and international law enforcement authorities and resources in the fight to identify, investigate, disrupt and dismantle these organizations at every level of operation.
The BEST investigative model is a comprehensive response to the growing threat to border security, public safety and national security. BESTs eliminate the barriers between federal and local investigations (access to both federal and state prosecutors) and close the gap with international partners in multinational criminal investigations.
BESTs also create an environment that minimizes the vulnerabilities in our operations that TCOs have traditionally capitalized on to exploit our nation’s land and sea borders.
In 2005, HSI created the first BEST in Laredo, Texas, in partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal, state, local and international law enforcement agencies. BEST Laredo represented HSI’s first combined, direct response to growing violence along the border with Mexico, and established the baseline for implementing the program elsewhere.
The success of the BEST investigative model is predicated on all BEST partner special agents and Task Force Officers (TFO) working together in one location, recognizing and leveraging a threat-based risk-mitigating investigative task force model. The model leverages the unique resources and abilities of all participating law enforcement partners, and the availability to designate partner law enforcement officers with Title 19 customs authorities. This has led to the expansion of the BEST investigative model to northern border and commercial seaport locations.
BEST Special Agents and TFOs investigate a wide range of criminal activity with a nexus to our land and sea borders, to include drug trafficking, arms trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling, gangs, money laundering and bulk cash smuggling, child exploitation, maritime smuggling, illicit tunnels and commercial fraud.
BESTs are located along the northern and southwest land borders, major seaports, and international airports from Hawaii to Puerto Rico. These BESTs comprise approximately 1,000 members representing more than 100 federal, state, local, tribal and international law enforcement agencies that have jointly committed to investigate transnational criminal activity and enhancing border security.
In December 2012, President Barack Obama signed into law the Jaime Zapata Border Enforcement Security Task Force Act. The law was named in memory of Jaime Zapata, an HSI special agent assigned to a BEST who was killed on duty in Mexico. This law amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to formally establish the BEST program and authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to direct the assignment of federal personnel to the program, as well as take other actions to aid federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies in participating in such task forces.
BESTs incorporate personnel from:
Currently, there are 57 BEST Units* in locations around the U.S.
* as of Jul. 2017
