Immigration and Naturalization Service INS

The Immigration Act of March 3, 1891, created a federal Bureau of Immigration in the Treasury Department, and the next year it opened the Ellis Island station in New York Harbor, through which about 12 million immigrants passed before it closed in 1954. A separate Bureau of Naturalization was added in 1906. An executive order of June 10, 1933, combined the two into the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Labor Department, and in 1940, as war approached, it was moved to the Justice Department.

The INS inspected travelers at ports of entry, ran the Border Patrol, founded in 1924, detained and deported people found to be in the country unlawfully, decided applications for visas, green cards, and asylum, and administered naturalization ceremonies for new citizens. It carried out the national origins quotas of the 1920s, the wartime registration of noncitizens, the 1954 deportation campaign known as Operation Wetback, and the legalization of nearly 3 million people under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

By the 1990s the INS was widely criticized for long backlogs, management problems, and a conflict between its service and enforcement missions. After the September 11 attacks, in which some hijackers had entered on visas the INS processed, the Homeland Security Act of November 25, 2002, abolished it effective March 1, 2003, dividing its work among U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection in the new Department of Homeland Security, while immigration courts stayed in the Justice Department. Supporters of the split said separating benefits from enforcement would improve both, while critics have said it fragmented immigration policy among competing agencies.