Homeland Insecurity

Of all the indignities that have faced beleaguered Homeland Security investigators as the reorganization continues, one of the most embarrassing has been confusion on the part of other law-enforcement agencies about the identities of Homeland Security personnel. Joe King, a legendary former undercover U.S. Customs agent who now teaches criminal justice at New York's John Jay College, says there have been incidents in which local police questioned the authenticity of badges carried by ICE agents, because they were unfamiliar with the new agency and found the "ICE" acronym comical. King says he has heard of cases in which ICE personnel were actually arrested by local law-enforcement officials who doubted their ID was real. An ICE official said the agency was now distributing new badges to its agents.

© 2005