I 
115TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 6361 
To establish a Commission tasked with establishing a humane immigration 
enforcement system, terminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 
and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 12, 2018 
Mr. POCAN (for himself, Ms. JAYAPAL, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Mr. SERRANO, Mr. 
BLUMENAUER, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. SMITH
of Washington, Ms. 
VELA´ZQUEZ, and Ms. CLARKE of New York) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition 
to the Committees on Ways and Means, and Homeland Security, for a 
period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for 
consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the com-
mittee concerned 
A BILL 
To establish a Commission tasked with establishing a hu-
mane immigration enforcement system, terminate Immi-
gration and Customs Enforcement, and for other pur-
poses. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Establishing a Hu-
mane Immigration Enforcement System Act’’. 
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SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) In 2003, under the Bush Administration, 
critical immigration enforcement functions were 
transferred away from the Department of Justice to 
the newly created U.S. Immigration Customs and 
Enforcement (ICE) under the guise of national secu-
rity. At the same time, a separate agency, Customs 
and Border Patrol, was also established with prime 
responsibility for border security activities. 
(2) In 2004, the Department of Justice stated, 
‘‘The primary mission of ICE is to prevent acts of 
terrorism by targeting the people, money, and mate-
rials that support terrorist and criminal activities’’. 
(3) Only a fraction of ICE resources and per-
sonnel are dedicated to ICE’s original mission of 
tracking terrorism and transnational crime syn-
dicates domestically and internationally, creating se-
rious challenges for national security. The Homeland 
Security Investigations (HSI) division of ICE, which 
fights human trafficking, drug smuggling and trade 
fraud and is critical to national security, has been 
deprioritized. 
(4) In June 2018, 19 ICE Homeland Security 
Investigations Division (HSI) employees, including a 
majority of special agents in charge of HSI, called 
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on DHS Secretary Nielsen to remove HSI from ICE 
to improve HSI’s ability to function effectively and 
to stop ICE’s reprogramming of HSI funds for En-
forcement and Removal Operations. The letter also 
stated that HSI’s work is compromised by the reluc-
tance among State and local law enforcement to col-
laborate with HSI given ICE’s civil immigration en-
forcement focus. 
(5) ICE’s work has radically shifted from its 
‘‘primary mission’’ of preventing acts of terrorism, 
as articulated by the Department of Justice in 2004, 
to carrying out detention and deportation activities 
as its core focus. Nearly 60 percent of ICE’s $7.1 
billion budget goes to detention and removal oper-
ations. Such removal operations tend to focus on in-
dividuals who are being prosecuted simply for illegal 
entry or re-entry, have no other criminal history and 
pose no threat to national security. These removal 
operations have torn apart families and communities 
and disrupted businesses throughout the country. 
(6) ICE contracts out billions of taxpayer dol-
lars every year to private, for-profit prison compa-
nies that have eschewed transparency and account-
ability, and operate at significantly higher expense to 
taxpayers than lower-cost alternatives to detention. 
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