ICE Operating in Canada, Promises Not to Do the Thing Everyone’s Mad About
As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to draw heat for its deportation blitz back home, some Canadians are discovering the agency has quietly been renting desk space north of the border, and has been for a while now.
According to the U.S. government’s own website, ICE maintains offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Ottawa. Not storefronts, exactly, more like a geopolitical pop-up shop.
In a statement to CBC News, an ICE spokesperson clarified that the officials operating in Canada belong to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a separate branch from the enforcement arm currently dominating headlines in Minneapolis and beyond. HSI, the spokesperson stressed, is focused on investigating serious transnational crimes, not rounding up undocumented dishwashers.
HSI agents work out of the U.S. embassy in Ottawa and consulates elsewhere, helping Canadian authorities tackle drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, fraud and terrorism, essentially trying to stop crime “before it reaches the United States,” which is comforting, depending on your definition of “before.”
ICE declined to say when it arrived in Canada, suggesting the agency prefers its border-crossing habits discreet.
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