One in four FBI agents is assigned to immigration cases, even though it is not the Bureau's jurisdiction.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a quarter of its agents are involved in immigration enforcement. Such a large-scale restructuring of the agency could jeopardize other priority areas of the Bureau's work, writes The Washington Post.

Currently, nearly a quarter of the FBI's roughly 13,000 agents nationwide are engaged in immigration enforcement. In the country's largest territorial agencies, this figure reaches 40%, according to FBI data obtained by Virginia Senator Mark R. Warner, a Democrat.

This large number of transfers—approximately 3000 agents—marks a significant change in the structure of the leading US law enforcement agency, which has focused on national security threats since September 11, 2001. The increased focus on immigration has raised concerns among current and former FBI agents. They claim that morale within the Bureau is declining as agents have less time to devote to the complex cases they were hired to handle.

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Previously, only a few FBI agents worked on immigration enforcement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), although the two agencies have collaborated on investigations.

The Trump administration has long claimed that FBI staff time is increasingly being spent on immigration cases. However, the nearly 25% figure marks the first precise confirmation of the scale of this shift. Warner, as the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, requested this data.

According to statistics, agents were transferred from assignments related to cybercrime, drug trafficking, terrorism, and counterintelligence. Agents transferred to immigration enforcement work with ICE to identify and arrest people illegally in the country.

The total FBI resources devoted to immigration cases are likely even higher than the 25% stated, as Warner's data only includes those agents who spend at least 50% of their time on immigration-related work. It does not include dozens of other agents who work on a smaller scale.

FBI Director Kash Patel has redeployed more agents to combat violent crime at the local level—another Trump administration priority. Patel publicly stated that under his leadership, the FBI has made more counterintelligence and drug-related arrests than during the same period last year.

However, several sources interviewed said agents are overwhelmed, which could lead to failures in investigations of national security and other complex cases.

"We're weakening ourselves day by day," said Chris O'Leary, a former FBI senior supervisor and special agent. "When our officers are patrolling the streets and arresting illegal immigrants, it's a misuse of their exceptional skills."

Transfers to immigration enforcement became one of the administration's tools in restructuring the FBI. Patel ousted the bureau's most senior leaders and fired agents he deemed disloyal to the president's policies. Several people, interviewed on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said agents feared being fired for doing their jobs, and many eligible for retirement are leaving the service.

On October 7, Patel fired three agents he alleged were involved in obtaining phone records of nine Republican Party members during the Biden administration. This was part of an investigation into Trump's alleged attempt to challenge the 2020 election results.

Republican lawmakers announced this week that they learned the FBI had obtained their phone records, calling it an act of betrayal. The records were obtained through a grand jury process and contained only the numbers the lawmakers called and the duration of the calls, but not their content. There is no evidence that the lawmakers themselves were targets of the investigation.

FBI agents are assigned to cases by their supervisors and generally do not choose what they work on.

"Yes, I did fire those agents," Patel confirmed on Fox News on October 7. "This is just the beginning. We will see our investigations through to the end."

FBI agents have been dispatched to assist with the deployment of the National Guard and other federal resources, as directed by Trump, to combat crime in Portland, Oregon, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies to protect ICE facilities amid what she described as an increase in threats and attacks against them. Bondi also ordered agents to be deployed to Portland and Chicago.

In August, the FBI deployed more than 100 of its specialists to Washington, D.C., for overnight work as part of the enhanced federal law enforcement measures ordered by Trump to combat crime in the capital. Hundreds of agents from the Bureau's Washington office, including officers from the counterterrorism, cybercrime, and corruption units, are on duty several times a week to carry out these tasks, according to sources familiar with the matter.

This weakened the Washington office, generally considered an elite FBI unit, and slowed down investigations into other cases, the sources said.

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Bondi defended the FBI's decision to devote more resources to immigration enforcement during a Senate hearing on October 7, arguing that such attention is necessary to keep the country safe.

“Every day, our agents from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA], the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives [ATF], and federal marshals, working with the Department of Homeland Security [DHS], keep Americans safe and remove illegal immigrants from the country, many of whom have committed violent crimes here,” Bondi concluded.

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