Has the Department of Homeland Security ever officially renamed a component agency such as ICE?

1. The question being asked and why it matters

The user is asking whether DHS has ever exercised formal authority to change the legal or public name of one of its component agencies (for example, renaming ICE to something else), a procedural act that would typically appear in statutory text, Federal Register notices, or DHS’s own organizational materials; that matters because a formal renaming carries legal, budgetary, and public-accountability implications distinct from internal reorganizations or policy changes ^{[4] [5]}.

2. What the sources do show: creation and consolidation, not renaming

The assembled reporting consistently describes the 2002 Homeland Security Act as creating the Department of Homeland Security by consolidating 22 existing agencies into a new Cabinet department and transferring functions such as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Customs functions, FEMA, and others into DHS—this is consolidation and transfer, not a later unilateral renaming of a component like ICE ^{[1] [6] [2]}.

3. ICE’s origin is reorganization, not a simple name swap

ICE’s existence within DHS is presented across the sources as the result of organizational design within the newly created department—ice is listed among DHS components and described as promoting homeland security through enforcement—yet the sources do not present a DHS decree that “renamed” an older agency into ICE in the sense of a standalone renaming action; instead, pre-existing functions were moved and reconstituted inside DHS’s new structure ^{[3] [2] [5]}.

4. Where an official renaming would appear, and what the record shows

Official renamings or name changes in the federal government generally appear in statutory language, the Federal Register, or agency organizational charts and notices; the provided Federal Register and DHS organizational sources show publications, component lists, and the organizational chart, but they do not include an example of DHS issuing a formal renaming of ICE or a major component in the supplied excerpts ^{[4] [5] [3]}.

5. Internal reorganizations and shifts in authority are documented

The materials document internal structural adjustments and shifts in component independence—such as references to departments undergoing changes to improve efficiency and components being given more independence under Secretaries like Chertoff—but these are described as reorganizations, second-stage reviews, or changed authorities rather than formal renamings of component names ^{[7] [1] [6]}.

6. Alternative interpretations and limitations of the reporting

An alternative view is that name changes can be subtle: Congress might create or dissolve statutory entities, or the department might adopt new public-facing brands without a formal legal renaming; the provided sources do not include a comprehensive Federal Register history or statutory trace of every action, so it cannot be asserted from these sources alone that no such renaming has ever happened in any narrow instance beyond what's documented here ^{[4] [1]}. The reporting available emphasizes creation, transfers, and organizational listings rather than cataloging any post-creation official renaming actions.

7. Bottom line, with caveats

Based on the reporting provided, DHS has reorganized and absorbed pre-existing agencies into new components (the classic example being the transfer of immigration and customs functions into DHS), but there is no documentation in these sources of DHS officially renaming a component agency such as ICE; if a definitive legal determination is required, the Federal Register entries and statutory history would need to be checked comprehensively beyond the excerpts supplied here ^{[1] [4] [2]}.