18 USC § 115(c)(1)
(1) “Federal law enforcement officer” means any officer, agent, or employee of the United States authorized by law or by a Government agency to engage in or supervise the prevention, detection, investigation, or prosecution of any violation of Federal criminal law;
HSI special agents have authority to investigate violations across multiple federal statutes including immigration law (Title 8), customs law (Title 19), general federal crimes (Title 18), and the Controlled Substances Act (Title 21). But who we think of as ICE aren't HSI special agents.
Enforcement and Removal Operations (normal ICE agents) do not have this authority and are not Law Enforcement under 18 because they are enforcing administrative removal or civil immigration status violations which are civil proceedings, not Federal Criminal Law violations. Someone whose role is limited to civil or administrative enforcement of immigration status (without authority to enforce federal criminal law) would not, on the face of the statutory language alone, qualify under § 115(c)(1).
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Separately, when you fly at an airport, TSA are enforcing a subsection of travel laws (just like ICE enforces a subsection of immigration and customs law), but they are not 'law enforcement' as shown here:
https://jobs.tsa.gov/law-enforcement
Actual law enforcement is a seperate arm, the Federal Air Marshal Service. You can carry out targeted subsections of the law without being actual law enforcement.
ICE training has been reduced from 5 months to eight weeks. Law enforcement training was 16 weeks on it's own previously. There is zero possibility they are receiving law enforcement training in 8 weeks. There are now rumors training has been reduced to six weeks (ICE fails to update what their current training program is). I would note that training does not mean they are law enforcement (many Prosecutors and others attend Law Enforcement training) that type of training just means that they understand the system. You would not be able to cut ACTUAL law enforcement training in half (or more in this case) if someone is an ACTUAL law enforcement officer. Complete Law Enforcement training would be a REQUIREMENT of an ACTUAL Law Enforcement job, not something optional that can just be cut out.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/new-ice-recruit...
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2026/01/ice-more-doubled-i...
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In addition, 8 CFR § 287.8 - Standards for enforcement activities requires " The following immigration officers who have successfully completed basic immigration law enforcement training are hereby authorized and designated to exercise the power conferred". It can be argued current ICE training does not meet this requirement of Federal law to qualify and they are only authorized for not law enforcement civil immigration enforcement.