Nearly half of FBI agents working in the United States' major field offices have been reassigned to support immigration enforcement, according to newly released data. The information, obtained by Democratic Senator Mark Warner and shared with the Guardian, indicates that 45% of agents in the country's 25 largest field offices have been moved to assist the Department of Homeland Security's immigration crackdown. Across all FBI offices, 23% of the roughly 13,000 total agents are now working on immigration.
Senator Warner, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said the reassigned agents have been taken away from tackling cybercrimes, drug trafficking, terrorism, espionage, violent crimes, and counterintelligence. The shift comes as the Trump administration targets 3,000 daily arrests and seeks to expand detention capacity to hold more than 100,000 immigrants.
The data may understate the scale of the reorganisation, as the FBI only provided counts for agents spending more than half their time on immigration enforcement. Warner's office said it is likely that more than a quarter of total agent hours are now dedicated to immigration, and in some field offices, over half of agents have been redirected.
“When you pull a quarter of the FBI’s top agents off the front lines of fighting terrorists, spies, drug traffickers, and violent criminals, the consequences are clear: critical national security work gets sidelined, and our country is put at greater risk,” Warner said in a statement.
Former FBI agent Mike German described the move as unprecedented, noting that the bureau is redirecting agents to a mission outside its mandate. He warned that FBI agents, trained as investigators, may be ill-suited for the more dangerous and indiscriminate nature of immigration raids, which have at times led to the detention of US citizens. German also expressed concern about the shift away from public corruption and white-collar crime, which state and local agencies lack capacity to address.
