THE PROBLEM WITH ICEHow the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Shaped ICE’s Immigration Strategy
The immigration enforcement response to 9/11 set the stage for ICE’s aggressive conduct. Under this way of thinking, if the homeland is under threat, then those who challenge immigration enforcement are “domestic terrorists.” Investigations into ICE officers are muted, for the officers are protecting the homeland against existential danger. Severe tactics to detain immigrants and condemn protesters – and violate U.S. citizens’ constitutional protections — become not only permissible but also advisable.
Stephen Miller’s January 2026 announcement to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers – telling them that they have “immunity to perform your duties” and that no “illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist” can stop them – may seem like an extreme statement outside the political mainstream.
And when ICE agents use facial recognition software to monitor immigrants and protesters, that might seem like an unacceptable invasion of people’s privacy.
While extreme, these cases are not too unexpected. Both Miller’s statements and ICE’s monitoring extend from the framework of immigration enforcement that grew from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Immigration enforcement was reorganized and reframed after 9/11, particularly through the creation of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.
As a scholar of immigration in the U.S., I find that the growth of extreme immigration enforcement, both at the border and across the country, results from this change 25 years ago.
From Criminality to Terrorism
In November 2002, the Homeland Security Act created DHS. The founding of ICE followed a few months later. As the agency notes, it was part of “the single-largest government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense.” Immigration enforcement was folded into a national security priority whose primary purpose was to defend “homeland security.”
The notion of immigrants as potential criminals was widespread well before the creation DHS.
In 1996, for example, President Bill Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act. That law expanded the number of offenses that could result in automatic deportation, including of legal residents. The act also limited judicial review of deportation cases, while the very title of the law framed people in the U.S. without legal status as lawbreaking criminals.
But after 9/11, the connection between immigration and law enforcement intensified and took on a new dimension: counterterrorism. Immigration was no longer treated as a civil issue in which immigrants were deported if found through a civil court to have violated the law.
Instead, immigrants were evaluated as possible threats to the country.
Immigration trials, such as for overstaying visas, increasingly took place in closed hearings, with the government’s secret evidence not shared with the accused. Those arrested for crossing the border illegally were imprisoned and faced [criminal prosecutions]. Expedited deportations took place at the border and across the country, even for immigrants who had been in the U.S. for years.
