alt Hacker News> DHS was founded in 2003, as was ICE. The country got along for 227 years without these organizations, they aren't some bedrock thing from time immemorial.
The creation DHS was a reorganization of existing government functions. ICE existed before 2003: one bit was part of INS and another bit was part of the Customs Service.
Patrolling the border and immigration law enforcement have been going on since before any of us were born.
This is not entirely true, CBP still exists independent of ICE. Immigration enforcement within the interior, especially in the fashion we’ve seen recently, is a relatively new phenomena.