The Justice Department logo appears on a smartphone screen with the U.S. flag on a computer screen in the background in Reno, Nev., on Dec. 3, 2024. DOJ is prioritizing immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. Jaque Silva / Getty Images
Trump DOJ’s focus on immigration will hurt crime-fighting efforts, Democrats argue
Senior officials in the Trump administration have recently redirected DOJ personnel and resources toward immigration enforcement.
House Democratic leaders are concerned that the Trump administration’s redirection of Justice Department officers toward immigration enforcement will harm work to address other national security priorities.
Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and subcommittee ranking members Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Lucy McBath, D-Ga., wrote a letter to acting Attorney General James R. McHenry III requesting, by Feb. 17, information about the number of personnel who have or will be reassigned.
“Unfortunately, this administration has made it clear that it sees all immigrants as criminals and priorities for removal, making no distinction between an undocumented mother with no criminal record and a convicted murderer,” they wrote in their Tuesday letter. “[DOJ’s] dedicated law enforcement personnel conduct dangerous work through specific, strategic crime-fighting initiatives aimed at the most pernicious illegal activities and threats — lethal criminality like narcotics trafficking, violent crime and terrorism. Diverting critical resources away from these efforts will endanger American lives by allowing criminals to roam free on our streets, increasing the risk of drug trafficking and leaving us vulnerable to terrorist attacks.”
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who previously was a defense attorney for President Donald Trump, on Jan. 21 issued a memo directing the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and Project Safe Neighborhoods program to “establish national initiatives to provide focused resources and attention to immigration-related prosecutions at the federal, state and local levels.” Specifically, the directive requires OCDETF-funded federal prosecutors to spend “significant time and attention” on immigration offenses.
OCDETF is an independent component of DOJ that leads long-term investigations into transnational organized crime, money laundering and major drug trafficking networks. PSN brings together federal, state and local officials to identify and solve violent crime issues in a community.
The DOJ memo also requires FBI Joint Terrrorism Task Forces to coordinate with DHS on implementing Trump’s immigration-related initiatives.
Bove wrote that these actions were necessary to counter cartels, associated violence and fentanyl trafficking.
Relatedly, acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman on Jan. 23 signed a directive granting DOJ law enforcement officers in certain agencies the authority to investigate and apprehend undocumented immigrants. Huffman said that such authorization is integral to Trump’s mass deportation plans.
The agencies are: the U.S. Marshals; Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The Democrats’ letter comes as former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, was confirmed, 54-46, by the Senate Tuesday evening in a near-party-line vote.
The Trump administration has touted its arrests of undocumented immigrants and has begun sending “high-threat” ones to Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, but limited detention space has curtailed enforcement activities. For example, officials have released about 460 migrants from custody since Trump took office despite the president criticizing the practice during the campaign.
In fiscal 2024, the Biden administration deported nearly 271,500 individuals, which was a 10-year high.