Interior minister

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An interior minister (sometimes minister of the interior, minister for home affairs or internal security minister) is the member of a country's government typically responsible for policing, national security, and immigration matters. In some countries, matters relating to the maintenance of law and order and the administration of justice are the responsibility of a separate justice minister.

In countries with a federal constitution, an interior minister will often be found at both the federal and state levels. Similarly, autonomous entities and dependent territories may also have interior ministers; an example is Hong Kong (a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China), which has a Secretary for Security.

The equivalent departments in the United States are the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice; before the Department of Homeland Security was formed, many of its duties were the responsibility of the Department of Justice. The U.S. Department of the Interior is primarily concerned with managing public lands owned by the federal government, mainly the administration of natural resources such as parks and wildlife.

In the United Kingdom the relevant departments are the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice was formed on 9 May 2007 subsuming the Lord Chancellor's Department and taking some functions from the Home Office.

Interior minister

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