Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)

Deborah W. Meyers

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was among the more enduring bureaucratic attempts to manage the entry of the foreign-born into the United States through a single agency. With a mandate to administer U.S. immigration laws, the INS was responsible for determining the admissibility of new entrants, removing and preventing the entry of those not authorized to be in the United States, and processing the applications for citizenship, permanent residence, work authorization, and other such benefits to which applicants were legally entitled. This entry reviews the development of the INS, describing key functions and mandates as well as its shifting institutional location. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, as most current readers know it, dates to 1940, when it was transferred to the Justice Department by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a national security measure during World War II. Previously, however, the immigration service had been housed in the Labor Department, ...

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