Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Budgeting issues within the TSA created tension between funding for airport screeners versus the FAMS, and in time the FAMS was realigned to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The reasoning was that the FAMS could be re-designated as criminal investigator/special agents and would have a career path. ICE also had an investigative division with special agents specializing in investigating immigration and customs violations. Those immigration and customs agents would be cross trained to serve as supplemental FAMS in the event of a national emergency or in response to intelligence requiring additional marshals on flights.
Ultimately, one of Asa Hutchinson's final decisions before resigning as head of DHS's Border and Transportation Security Directorate was the issuance of a memorandum determining that air marshals would not also be ICE special agents. In 2005, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff conducted a second-stage review of DHS' organization and ordered the FAMS to be moved from ICE and back to the TSA. The move to TSA was effective October 1, 2005.
Read more about this topic: Federal Air Marshal Service
Famous quotes containing the words immigration and/or customs:
“The admission of Oriental immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our people has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulations secured by diplomatic negotiations. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)