Overview
- Personnel data shared by Sen. Mark Warner shows 45% of agents in the FBI’s 25 largest field offices and 23% of agents bureau-wide now spend most of their time on immigration enforcement.
- Warner says the counts likely understate the scale because they include only agents devoting more than half their hours to immigration, with some offices exceeding the 50% mark for redirected agents.
- The Justice Department and FBI leadership defend the redeployments as public-safety work, with Director Kash Patel’s office citing increases in counterintelligence and drug-trafficking arrests versus last year.
- Former FBI officials warn that pulling investigators from counterterrorism, counterintelligence, cybercrime and complex cases could weaken national security, noting unclear duties and training mismatches during raids.
- The shift aligns with an escalation of immigration operations targeting 3,000 daily arrests and expanded detention capacity, as reports of lowered morale and recent firings of agents from prior investigations add to internal strain.