President Donald Trump endorsed renaming U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as National Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or NICE, in a Truth Social post late Sunday night.
The proposal, which originated as a viral suggestion on X, aims to change the agency’s acronym so media outlets would refer to its officers as “NICE agents.”
Trump responded to the idea, sharing a screenshot of an X post that read: “I want Trump to change ICE to NICE (National Immigration and Customs Enforcement) so the media has to say NICE agents all day everyday.” He replied: “GREAT IDEA!!! DO IT. President DJT.”
President Trump endorses the idea of changing ICE to NICE
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) April 27, 2026
The idea would rebrand the agency as the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement while keeping its core functions intact. Unlike full federal departments, agencies such as ICE can often change names through administrative action without requiring congressional approval.
In September 2025, Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Defense to adopt “Department of War” as a secondary title for public and internal use, as The Dallas Express covered at the time. The department now uses the title on its website and in communications, though its official statutory name remains the Department of Defense. Only Congress can make a permanent statutory change to a cabinet-level department.
Trump’s executive order tasked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth with recommending legislative and executive steps to make the name change permanent. To date, Congress has not acted on the recommendation.
Historical precedent shows agency name changes have occurred without new legislation. In 2007, the Bush administration updated the former Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through the Federal Register.
