ICE

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What is ICE? What was it created to do? And what’s changed in 2025? Today on the show, the history of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and how it tracks the story of immigration, and politics, in the U.S.

Guests:

Peter Markowitz, professor at Cardozo School of Law in New York City and founder of the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic.

Rodger Werner is co-author of “The History and Evolution of Homeland Security in the United States” and currently employed by the Department of Homeland Security. The views he expresses in this episode are his own and do not represent the views of DHS or the U.S. government.To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Jaws has been called The Perfect Movie, the first blockbuster, the film that changed why we go to the movies, but what does it still have to say 50 years later?
0:08.8	We're bringing fresh eyes to the film, lifeless eyes, black eyes like a doll's eyes on pop culture happy hour.
0:15.0	Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:20.9	This just in, you were looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there.
0:25.5	We don't fully know the detail.
0:27.1	Did you see what happened, sir?
0:28.2	Unconfirmed reports.
0:29.3	Did you see what happened?
0:30.5	What happened?
0:35.6	On September 11th, 2001, as the ashes of the Twin Towers smoldered, a team of FBI agents met in a basement in Washington, D.C.
0:46.5	The energy in the room was intense.
0:49.9	It was their job to find out who did this, why, and if more attacks were coming.
0:56.5	They started making calls to the CIA, to police precincts around the country,
1:01.6	and to an agency known back then as INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
1:08.9	We are doing numerous interviews,
1:11.6	running down hundreds, if not thousands of leads around the country.
1:16.6	Within three days, they had a list of 19 names.
1:20.6	First name, Walid Al Sherry.
1:23.6	The second, whale, Al Sheri, also known as Walid.
1:29.1	And as investigators dug into each of those names, pressure mounted on the INS, because all 19 hijackers had come from abroad.
1:38.4	And all 19 were on temporary visas.
1:41.8	Some of their passports had fraudulent stamps in them, and consulate officials
	...

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