What specific language did the Homeland Security Act use to dissolve the INS and transfer its functions in 2002?
Executive summary
The Homeland Security Act of 2002 established the Department of Homeland Security and, through its transfer and reorganization provisions, moved the functions and authorities that had been exercised by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) into the new Department and its subordinate components rather than leaving the INS as a stand‑alone agency [1] [2]. The statute frames this change as establishment of DHS and assignment of “all functions of entities transferred to the Department,” with the practical transfer of INS authorities occurring on March 1, 2003 when DHS immigration components began operation [3] [4].
1. The statutory vehicle: establishing a new executive department
Congress enacted Public Law 107–296, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, “to establish the Department of Homeland Security, and for other purposes,” formally creating DHS as an executive department and setting out its mission and authorities in Title I of the Act [2] [1]. The Act’s opening establishment language—“There is established a Department of Homeland Security, as an executive department of the United States within the meaning of title 5, United States Code”—is the legal foundation the statute uses to absorb existing functions and agencies into the new Department [3].
2. Transfer language: “carry out all functions of entities transferred to the Department”
The Act explicitly directs DHS to “carry out all functions of entities transferred to the Department,” language that appears in section summaries and section‑by‑section treatments of the law and that has been repeatedly cited in legal and practitioner analyses as the operative phrase effectuating the movement of authorities from predecessor agencies into DHS [5] [6]. That transfer formulation is the statute’s mechanism for reallocating the INS’s legal authorities to DHS components—i.e., DHS was charged to perform the functions of the agencies and subdivisions moved under its umbrella [5].
3. Practical reallocation: creation of USCIS, CBP, and ICE
The Act’s reorganization of immigration authorities resulted in the division of former INS functions among three DHS components—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—and the formal shift of the INS’s authorities to those components, which began operating March 1, 2003 [4] [7]. Official DHS and federal agency materials state that, under the Homeland Security Act, the INS’s authorities were transferred to those three entities as part of the larger consolidation of 22 agencies into DHS [4] [3].
4. Did the Act “abolish” the INS or simply transfer functions?
Several legal summaries and practitioner accounts describe Congress as having “abolished” the INS in legislative effect because its authorities and operational roles were removed and reallocated to DHS components; others emphasize that the statute operates by transferring functions and personnel rather than by a single word such as “abolish” [7] [5]. The primary statutory approach was structural reorganization—establish DHS, transfer functions of specified entities to it, and assign duties to new Directorates and Offices—so while common usage speaks of the INS being “abolished,” the law accomplishes the change through explicit transfer and establishment provisions [2] [6].
5. What the text shows and what reporting highlights
The official public law and the enacted bill texts (Public Law 107–296) show the Act’s structural language—establishment of DHS, designation of its mission, and directives that the Department “carry out all functions of entities transferred to the Department” [2] [6]. Reporting, legal analyses, and agency histories repeatedly point to those clauses as the statutory linchpin and note the March 1, 2003 operational transfer of INS authorities into USCIS, CBP, and ICE [5] [4]. Policy critiques and migration scholars have used that statutory framework to assess consequences for immigration policy and agency performance since the reorganization [8].
6. Limits of this review
This account relies on the statute’s enacted text and official/secondary summaries available in the provided sources; verbatim placement of every clause and subsection that effected specific transfers is contained in the full Public Law text and the government‑published enactment PDF referenced here, which should be consulted for precise statutory wording of particular transfer provisions [2] [6]. Where sources characterize the change as “abolition,” that reflects conventional shorthand used in legal and practitioner commentary rather than a single dramatic legislative phrase; the Act effectuated the change through establishment and transfer language cited above [7] [5].