FBI field offices around the country have been ordered to assign significantly more agents to immigration enforcement, a dramatic shift in federal law enforcement priorities that will likely siphon resources away from counterterrorism, counterintelligence and fraud investigations, multiple current and former bureau officials told NBC News.
The orders, given in a series of memos and meetings in FBI offices this week, come at a time when the Trump administration is proposing to cut 5% of the FBI’s budget, and as the Justice Department is deprioritizing investigations of certain types of white-collar and corporate crime, according to a memo obtained by NBC News.
The new push is happening as FBI Director Kash Patel also approved 667 requests for FBI personnel to take early retirement this week, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News.
“As you know, we have been actively engaged in immigration enforcement efforts in coordination with our DOJ and DHS partners,” said a memo from a senior FBI official to managers that was obtained by NBC News. “Starting this week, we will need to see an increase in operational tempo in your immigration efforts. DOJ expects a significant increase in the number of agents participating in immigration enforcement operations.”
One federal law enforcement official estimated that the vast majority of agents were uncomfortable with being a part of the immigration operations, saying ICE doesn’t meticulously plan out arrest operations the way that the bureau does.
“This is not what we do, these are bad ideas,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity citing fear of retaliation. “If this was a Democrat administration, I’d be saying this is bad, we shouldn’t be doing this.”
FBI spokesman Ben Williamson defended the move. “The FBI has been committed to supporting our partners in immigration enforcement and will remain so.”
The stepped-up immigration enforcement initiative was first reported by Reuters.
Nationwide shift
The shift in resources spans the country, according to two FBI officials. In a major change, 45% of all agents in the 25 largest FBI field offices will be working on immigration full time.
The bureau’s Atlanta field office will assign 67 agents to work on immigration “enforcement and removal operations” full time, seven days a week, the officials said. That is around half of all the agents assigned to the Atlanta field office headquarters
In Los Angeles, the field office is creating nine squads to address enforcement and removal operations full time. They will pursue noncitizens who have overstayed their visas, even if they have no criminal history.
And the FBI’s Boston field office was ordered to assign an additional 33 special agents to immigration enforcement
The FBI and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The orders intensify what had already been an unprecedented push by the Trump Justice Department to get the FBI involved in immigration enforcement, a task traditionally handled by the Department of Homeland Security.
One of the memos says the goal is to have 2,000 FBI agents across the country working full time on immigration enforcement at any one time.
Given that FBI resources are finite, current and former officials say, a significant increase in immigration enforcement will draw agents away from what have long been top FBI priorities, including counterterrorism, counterespionage, fraud and violent crime.
Trump and his top aides have been frustrated by the slow pace of deportations. Documents released in the Biden administration showed that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants with criminal records were living in the U.S., including more than 10,000 with homicide convictions. Many of those people are still here, according to NBC News reporting.
White-collar crime
The moves also come as the head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division issued a memo this week ordering a new “appropriate balance” in enforcement of corporate crime.
“Overbroad and unchecked corporate and white-collar enforcement burdens U.S. businesses and harms U.S. interest,” wrote Matthew Galeotti, the head of the criminal division, adding: “Not all corporate misconduct warrants federal criminal prosecution.”
The memo orders prosecutors to prioritize targeting schemes to defraud Americans, tariff evaders, sanctions’ violators, Chinese money launderers and foreign terrorist financiers.
But it seeks to tap the brakes on what had been a major initiative in the Biden Justice Department to target corporate crime and to begin monitoring of companies found to have broken the law.
Galiotti ordered prosecutors “to review the length of terms of all existing agreements with companies to determine if they should be terminated early.”
“The work of Criminal Division attorneys to investigate and prosecute white-collar crime is essential to the Department’s efforts to advance American interests, protect victims, and strengthen our national security,” the memo says.
“But federal investigations into corporate wrongdoing can be costly and intrusive for businesses, investors, and other stakeholders, many of whom have no knowledge of, or involvement in, the misconduct at issue,” Galiotti wrote. “Federal investigations can also significantly interfere with day-to-day business operations and cause reputational harm that may at times be unwarranted.”
