During Fiscal Year 2003, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agents in South Texas seized a large amount of narcotics, currency, false documents, undocumented immigrants, and uncovered several agricultural violations. 

Both the CBP and ICE were formed in March 2003 by the Department of Homeland Security.  The CBP replaces the former US Customs, Immigration and Agriculture Inspectors and the Border Patrol.

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A 1998 Immigration law designed to provide permanent residency to illegal aliens from Haiti who lived in the US prior to 1996 might not entirely serve its proper purpose.  The law excludes waivers for Haitians who used forged documents to enter the United States (called “airplane refugees”) after fleeing abuses and killings after the 1991 coup and fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.  Legislators who worked on and drafted the 1998 law stated that they did not intend to exclude the “airplane refugees” from the waiver.  According to Paul Virtue, general counsel at the former INS in 1998-1999, “it was an oversight that they were excluded.”

A US General Accounting Office Report found that as of October 2003, more than 11,000 of the 37,851 green card applications filed by Haitian migrants had been approved.