Elevated
Significant Risk of Terrorist Attacks
January 17, 2007 (Revised)
The Compliance Enforcement Unit (CEU), an investigative component of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is charged with tracking and pursuing foreign students, exchange visitors and other non-immigrant visitors who violate their immigration status. The CEU draws upon various government databases to gather and analyze leads on visitors to the United States, identify potential security or criminal threats, and ensure full compliance with immigration laws.
As the largest investigative arm in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE unites the functions, resources, and legal authorities of several previously fragmented border and security organizations into an integrated homeland security agency focused on investigations and enforcement. The ICE mission is to prevent terrorist and criminal acts by targeting the people, money, and materials that support terrorist and criminal networks.
The CEU develops leads on immigration violators by collecting and examining data from three key national databases:
Since its creation in June 2003, the CEU has reviewed more than 550,000 leads compiled from these databases. Of these leads, nearly 16,000 revealed potential violations of U.S. visa or immigration law and were immediately referred to ICE field offices for investigation. To date, these investigations have resulted in approximately 3,190 arrests.