November 25, 2002

President Bush signs Homeland Security Bill

Today President Bush signed the Homeland Security Bill into law, and with it, authorized the largest federal reorganization since the creation of the Defense Department in 1947. President Bush nominated Tom Ridge, his current homeland security advisor, to head up the department and selected current Navy Secretary Gordon England to be Ridge’s deputy. Asa Hutchinson, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, was tapped by the President to be the agency’s undersecretary of border and transportation security.

As reported in our November 18, 2002 News Flash, the creation of the Department signals a major change for immigration as this means the Immigration and Naturalization Service will be abolished. In its place, the new Department which will have two separate bureaus, the Directorate of Border and Transportation Security, and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services to handle immigration related matters.

President Bush now must submit a reorganization plan within the next 60 days for the new Department. Ninety days after the submission of the reorganization plan, the twenty two agencies which will now be under the new Department’s control can start to be transferred. The administration will have a year to consolidate the twenty two existing federal agencies into the new Department of Homeland Security.

GT will continue to monitor the development of the new Department of Homeland Security and the creation of the two new immigration Bureaus.

  H.R. 5005: Homeland Security Act (PDF/499 kb, 187 pages)