As the Trump administration expands its crackdown on immigration, it’s pulling more and more agencies into the effort. The State Department’s law enforcement arm, the Diplomatic Security Service, is now working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on immigration. DSS agents are taking part in immigration enforcement in the US, and, according to emails viewed by WIRED, are now being asked to log time they are spending on immigration enforcement.
DSS’s remit is limited in scope to specific issues like visa and passport fraud as well as the protection of the secretary of state and foreign dignitaries visiting the US, according to its website and sources at the agency. DSS agents are based in US field offices, which are US-based State Department offices, and its embassies and consulates abroad.
In an ICE press release from June 2 describing the detention of nearly 1,500 people in Massachusetts, the agency noted that it had worked with the DSS, among other law enforcement agencies. DSS Boston Special Agent in Charge Matthew O’Brien said in the release that “the Diplomatic Security Service is proud to work with our federal law enforcement partners in support of major enforcement operations like this which undoubtedly make our communities safer and strengthens our national security.”
Immigration enforcement, according to one DSS worker who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, is solidly outside the usual duties of DSS agents. They were surprised when they saw the press release and an accompanying video on the agency’s YouTube channel highlighting the service’s immigration work.
But two sources who spoke to WIRED say that participating in immigration enforcement is entirely new for the security service, which specializes in a narrow zone of law enforcement.
“We never do that, because it's not within our authority,” a current DSS employee says of previous agency actions. “It’s sort of like having IRS agents investigate espionage in NASA. They do not have legal authority to do so.” In February, Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem deputized 600 of the more than 2,500 DSS officers “to help with arresting and deporting illegal immigrants,” according to a DHS press release.
The State Department and ICE did not respond to a request for comment.
But on June 26, an email was sent to the entire DSS staff with the subject “Title 8 Reporting Instructions.” Title 8 refers to the section of the US Code that deals with “aliens and nationality.” In the email, agents are instructed to report the different types of immigration-related activities in a tool called MyDSIR, including “detentions,” (which includes when a DSS agent is “part of an arrest team, perimeter security team, transport team, surveillance team, etc.”). For Title 8 cases that originate within or have the potential to be charged by DSS, offices are instructed to use a different system, the Investigative Management System. DSS agents are also instructed to log any hours they spend on immigration-related enforcement activities through another tool, DSReady.
The DSS employee says that it is common to log all activities as part of a DSS investigation, but until now, immigration enforcement was never a category that could be logged in the system.
“The system before was always [tracking] for passport fraud, visa fraud, or internal investigation for malfeasance, misfeasance, or for human trafficking,” they say. “But this Title 8, it is veering off from our authority, from our training.”
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A former DSS agent, who worked in one of the State Department’s US offices and spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their privacy, says that DSS agents based in the US never had the authority to enforce immigration before the second Trump administration. If DSS did work with DHS, it would be because “there's a nexus in our investigations,” the former agent says.
DSS agents, the source adds, would have no experience executing on administrative warrants, the kind of warrants that allow a person to be arrested for an immigration violation. “We know what to do for an arrest warrant, all the steps we take and all that,” they say. “We don't do administrative warrants; we do criminal warrants.”
Last week, The New York Times reported that DSS officers were participating in the federal takeover of Washington, DC, including in at least one arrest. This also appears to have been an assignment outside their remit.
Under the Trump administration, the State Department has undergone a major overhaul. In May, the department notified Congress that it intended to create an Office of Remigration as a “hub for immigration issues and repatriation tracking.” The concept of remigration is a far-right plan that calls for immigrants and minorities to be kicked out of Western countries. Last month, some 1,350 State Department employees received termination notices, as the Trump administration has said it aims to cut 15 percent of the department’s staff.
The DSS agent suspects that participating in and documenting efforts toward immigration enforcement could allow the agency to demonstrate its value in executing the president’s agenda and allow it to protect some of its budget.
“This definitely only started after Trump took office,” they say.
The DSS employee, who has worked at other law enforcement agencies, says that “DSS agents are the least trained” and worries that “agents who are ill-trained are now enforcing the immigration law and are trampling on people's civil rights, and they don't probably even know about it.”
