FBI return agents at work against terrorism after having diverted them to immigration

The FBI returns to the agents to combat terrorism who have been ordered to focus on immigration cases in their former jobs due to the concern of Iran’s potential threats, four people with direct knowledge of the case at NBC News said.

Don HolsteadThe deputy director of counter-terrorism, published advice during the weekend, reallocating agents who work on counter-terrorism, counterintelligence and cyber-problems but had been diverted by immigration tasks, two of the people said.

The four people said this decision was linked to the possibility of ripping Iran against the United States for its recent military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites. NBC News A reported that Iranian officials Men of American officials that they would trigger so-called dormant cells inside the United States if they were attacked.

The FBI said that it does not confirm or refuse operational changes.

“However, we are continuously assessing our resources to respond to the most urgent threats to our national security and to ensure the security of the American people,” he said in a statement.

For months, current and former FBI officials have warned against a new requirement that FBI employees across the country, including some who specialize in national security, spend a lot of time helping agents of the Ministry of Homeland Security to find undocumented immigrants, which is not traditionally a role of the FBI.

FBI director Kash Patel imposed the requirements under the Trump administration decrees.

Many current and former officials of the office had expressed their concern that the FBI limited resources, the crucial national security threats could draw attention to the emphasis on immigration. There was also a series of departures compared to the main national security jobs at the Ministry of Justice and the FBI. NBC News reported this week On a so-called brain flight of national security positions due to resignation in the two agencies.

“Layers and pensions have had some effect, but the greatest impact comes from the descending redirection of FBI resources to immigration and cartels,” said an FBI employee who spoke under the cover of anonymity. “The mission to combat terrorism has been fundamentally redefined to treat drug cartels as designated foreign terrorist organizations. This has consumed huge resources in the FBI field and at headquarters and at Doj. ”

Traditionally, cartels and criminals have been investigated by the criminal sections of the FBI and the Ministry of Justice, while terrorism has been part of the national security sections of each organization, endowed with different people, said FBI employees.

In theory, if the cartels are now international terrorist organizations, the FBI’s anti -terrorist division should manage these cases, have added the employees, but the agents of this division are not cartel experts.

At the same time, many criminal squads generally do not work with information information and do not work in installations designed to protect classified documents.

The FBI is relatively small – 38,000 employees, many of whom are agents, said officials. So spending agents to new missions has an impact.

“When you change to make the border the top priority, you necessarily reduce other priorities,” said the FBI employee. “The FBI does not admit it, but they are mathematics.”

A second FBI employee said that the displacement of immigration agents affected the office. “We were already widespread quite thin. It will only take one crisis to really insist on the system,” said the second FBI employee. “On the terrorism front, I think the only way to see the impact, unfortunately, is when something bad happens.”

A third FBI employee praised the reallocation of resources following Iran threats.

“I guess they realize that all of this national security thing is important, after all,” said the employee.