The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ordered its entire investigative division, which is based on 6,000 agents, to shift its focus from drug dealers, terrorists and human trafficking to the Trump administration’s mission to return people living in the US illegally to their countries of origin. Current and former officials at the DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations Agency (HSI) said they are working in accordance with a recent executive order issued by President Donald Trump that has asked federal law enforcement agencies to use their resources against illegal immigrants. Therefore, the arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants will accelerate in the coming days.
These officials have also warned that the Trump administration’s latest order will affect investigations into several important cases related to other dangerous international threats to Americans, including Mexican drug cartels that smuggle the dangerous drug fentanyl across the border. Chris Capanelli, a former supervisory agent at HSI, said that his colleagues were already worried that if Trump won the election, there would be a crackdown on immigration. This is a kind of derailment of the entire system. He said that “some friends are looking for jobs outside of DHS in other law enforcement agencies where they don’t have to chase immigrants. These friends say that what they are being asked to do is not what they were hired to do. “This is not an appropriate use of our skills and experience,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “At this time, all DHS agents, including HSI, are engaged in the task of arresting and deporting illegal aliens in order to fulfill the primary mission of protecting America.”
