Smuggling/Public Safety Division

Office of Investigations

There are six programs within this Division:

• The Commercial Fraud Branch oversees programs designed to target and disrupt (through the use of both criminal and civil sanctions), individuals and entities involved in predatory and unfair trade practices that place our public health and safety at risk, threaten the U.S. economy or restrict competitiveness of U.S. industry in world markets, including Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), tobacco smuggling, importation of goods that are harmful to the environment and commercial fraud.
  
  
• Worksite Enforcement Branch maintains operational oversight of critical infrastructure protection (CIP) investigations intended to enhance national security by mitigating the insider threat posed by unauthorized workers employed in restricted or sensitive areas of critical infrastructure facilities. Unauthorized workers are identified and removed through cooperative “partnering” initiatives with other regulatory and enforcement agencies, employers, and security officials. Additionally, the unit coordinates criminal investigations targeting employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers and who commit other criminal violations such as human smuggling, fraud, or worker exploitation. The unit also has programmatic responsibility for developing and promoting worksite enforcement policy and for the implementation of outreach programs intended to provide employers with the tools and knowledge that will enable them to hire and maintain a legal workforce.
  
  
• Smuggling/Human Trafficking Branch oversees programs designed to identify, locate, disrupt and prosecute criminal enterprises that bring, transport, harbor and smuggle people into the United States in violation of law, or engage in Human Trafficking (i.e., the act of bringing, transporting, harboring, and smuggling people across international boundaries and subjecting them to exploitation, indentured servitude, bondage, etc.) Read more
  
  
• Contraband Smuggling Branch has both programmatic and operational oversight of ICE investigative resources directed at organizations smuggling contraband (including narcotics) into the United States. The primary focus of the branch is to support the Office of Investigations strategy to identify, disrupt and dismantle significant smuggling organizations. Read more
  
  
• Identity and Benefits Fraud Branch oversees programs designed to identify and disrupt, through criminal prosecutions, organizations and individuals involved in the illegal manufacture, facilitation and sale of fraudulent identity documents, and the fraudulent acquisition of immigration benefits. Read more
  
  
• Human Rights Violations Branch oversees programs involving the identification, investigation and removal, where possible, of human rights violators and modern day war criminals from the United States. Examples of human rights violators and modern day war criminals include those individuals involved in genocide, torture or persecution. Read more