Immigration Agencies

INS no longer. Now USCIS.

As of March 1, 2003 the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) does no longer exists and most of their services have merged into the Department of Homeland Security as the new Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS). All information on this website referring to the old INS can be applied to the new BCIS.

Furthermore: This website will follow the following recommendation from ILW.com’s Immigrant’s Weekly, which appeared on their website in November 2003:

” For the past several months, several bureaus of the DHS (BCIS, BICE AND BCBP) began using the following names: USCIS, ICE, and CBP in press releases that had been released by the various bureaus. A letter to the Editor today on this issue kindly points out an AILA posting on this matter (see below). Despite all of this, we were reluctant to adopt the new names since the statutory authority for the name changes was not clear. However, the recently signed Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2004 uses the new names: USCIS, ICE, and CBP. That is sufficient authority for us. Going forward, Immigrant’s Weekly will begin to refer to these DHS agencies by the new designations.”