Thousands of federal workers have been reassigned from their duties to aid in President Donald Trump’s campaign promise of “the largest mass deportation operation in American history.”
Reuters reports, “As U.S. President Donald Trump pledges to deport ‘millions and millions’ of ‘criminal aliens,’ thousands of federal law enforcement officials from multiple agencies are being enlisted to take on new work as immigration enforcers.
“I do not recall ever seeing this wide a spectrum of federal government resources all being turned toward immigration enforcement,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former Homeland Security official who spoke with Reuters.
Although the specific number of federal workers being redirected to immigration is not fully clear, Reuters notes that the effort is reminiscent of the “aftermath of the 2001 attacks, when Congress created the Department of Homeland Security that pulled together 169,000 federal employees from other agencies and refocused the FBI on battling terrorism.”
According to one ATF official, around 80% of the organization’s 2,500 agents have been ordered to take on immigration-related tasks. At least a quarter of DEA agents are also working on immigration.
So far, Trump’s mass-deportation program has made notable gains, while also facing challenges.
The number of migrants crossing the southern border is now at a record low.
Average apprehensions were at just 330 a day during February, Trump’s first full month in office.
In a statement issued by CBP, they said these are “the lowest nationwide apprehensions in” the organization’s history.
Border Patrol agents apprehended 8,347 illegal aliens at the southern border in February, down 94% from 140,641 apprehensions in February 2024.
Securing adequate funding has proven an early difficulty, though.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is facing a serious funding shortfall of $2 billion.
According to Axios, ICE has warned Congress it faces a massive black hole in its budget that could compromise its ability to carry out Trump’s flagship immigration policy.
Although Congress will send an additional $500 million in the stop-gap spending bill that just passed the House, that money would still fall well short of providing the funds ICE needs to continue working at its current pace through September.
Current plans for ICE expansion include the hiring of hundreds more stuff, the doubling of detention space to accommodate 100,000 people and increasing the number of detention flights.
The spending plan now before Congress is “not going to be sufficient to be able to cover the entire need for what they’re covering” at ICE, said Sen. James Lankford
“Just the bed space alone becomes very significant. And to just be able to detain people for a couple of days while they’re processing, and then to be able to move out flights… is exceptionally expensive.”
It may be possible to divert money to ICE from other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, such as FEMA and the Coast Guard, but this could only be a temporary measure.
