# United States Marshals Service The **U.S. Marshals Service (USMS)**, created by the Judiciary Act of 1789, is the oldest federal law-enforcement agency and the enforcement arm of the federal courts. It sits inside the [[Department of Justice]] ([[DOJ Component Tree]]). Its jobs: - **Judicial security:** protecting about 2,500 federal judges, other court officials and courthouses. - **Fugitive apprehension:** it is the lead agency for federal fugitives and runs regional task forces. - **Prisoner operations:** holding and transporting federal pretrial detainees. - **Witness Security:** running the witness protection program. - **Asset forfeiture:** managing and selling seized property. ## The structural point The judiciary does not guard itself. The people who protect federal judges, and who carry out court orders when a party refuses, work for the Attorney General. In ordinary times that is an administrative detail. When the executive branch is the party most often losing in federal court, and the President and his allies publicly attack individual judges, the arrangement becomes the gap the [[Judicial Independence]] page identifies: the court's security and the enforcement of its orders both depend on the other branch. ## The threat numbers The Marshals' own figures put the pressure in context. As of **September 15, 2026**, with the fiscal year not yet over, the Service had logged **448 threats against 325 different federal judges**, roughly one in eight judges on the federal bench. Protective investigations stood at 1,362 in FY2022. The 2025 impeachment calls against individual judges ([[James Boasberg]]) and the anonymous pizza deliveries to judges' homes, some sent in the name of a judge's murdered son, fed the 2025 surge in public concern. Chief Justice [[John Roberts]] has warned repeatedly against the intimidation of judges. ## Other roles in the vault Deputized marshals and USMS task forces also appear in immigration-enforcement and protest-policing operations. The rules governing detention of children kept minors out of Marshals custody, which is why the family-separation policy separated them ([[Family Separation Policy]]). ## See also - [[Judicial Independence]] · [[Federal Judges Hub]] · [[James Boasberg]] - [[Department of Justice]] · [[DOJ Component Tree]] · [[Family Separation Policy]]