Thousands of federal agents reassigned to immigration: Reuters
4 Min Read
Following Trump's executive order mandating a crackdown on "illegal immigration", agents that didn't play a role in immigration enforcement find themselves raiding immigrant centers and arresting migrants.
-
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Baltimore Field Officer Director Matt Elliston listens during a briefing in Silver Spring, Md, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025 (AP)
Federal agents who are typically assigned to law enforcement tasks such as combating child trafficking or money laundering are now being reassigned to crack down on immigrants, Reuters reported on Saturday.
As US President Donald Trump vows to deport “millions and millions” of “criminal aliens,” thousands of federal law enforcement officials from various agencies are being reassigned to immigration enforcement, shifting crime-fighting resources away from other critical areas, including drug trafficking, terrorism, sexual abuse, and fraud.
"I do not recall ever seeing this wide a spectrum of federal government resources all being turned toward immigration enforcement," former Homeland Security official Theresa Cardinal Brown told Reuters, adding that "When you're telling agencies to stop what you've been doing and do this now, whatever else they were doing takes a back seat."
Mobilization to 'deport illegal aliens'
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that the United States government is “mobilizing federal and state law enforcement to find, arrest, and deport illegal aliens," after being questioned by Reuters.
The crackdown is a “wasteful, misguided diversion of resources," leading democrat Senator Dick Durbin said, adding that the anti-immigrant efforts are making the US less safe by diverting attention away from fighting more significant crimes.
US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, speaking with Reuters, dismissed concerns that the changes were obstructing other key criminal investigations, firmly rejecting the notion that prioritizing immigration enforcement meant any reduction in the full-force pursuit of violent crime.
Blanche added that “President Trump views what has happened over the last couple years truly as an invasion, so that’s how we’re trying to remedy that," highlighting that the crackdown was warranted.
Changing professions of agencies
Since Trump's inauguration, agencies that previously played no role in immigration enforcement are now participating in raids on "illegal aliens", such as the ATF, with 80% of its agents being ordered to conduct immigration enforcement tasks such as finding migrants living in the US illegally.
Before January, the responsibility of tracking down immigrants residing in the country unlawfully primarily fell to two agencies—Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection—which together employed around 80,000 personnel, while most other departments dedicated minimal resources to deportation efforts.
Homeland Security Investigations, an agency that typically probes into national security threats, terrorism, drug smuggling, human trafficking, illegal arms exports, financial crimes, child sex crimes, and intellectual property theft is now being dragged into the anti-immigrant efforts.
Labeling immigration as an 'invasion'
On January 31, HSI staff received an internal email from a senior official outlining a new directive focused on “protecting the American people against invasion,” instructing special agents and other personnel to take on a more significant role in detaining and deporting immigrants or preventing their entry at US borders.
The Internal Revenue Service's criminal investigation agents who typically worked on dismantling complex financial and tax crimes are also being redirected towards immigration operations.
Federal prosecutors on the other hand are being overwhelmed after the top Justice Department official Emil above ordered all judges to “take all steps necessary” to prosecute illegal immigrants for crimes in the US, drowning the prosecutors who handle various criminal cases with immigration-related tasks.
In San Diego and Detroit, the cases of prosecutions related to immigration witnessed a dramatic increase, more than quadrupling in San Diego while cases of felony drug crime witnessed a slight drop.
