Donald Trump’s deportation blitz is gutting critical Homeland Security operations — leaving child predators, terrorists and sex traffickers to operate with far less scrutiny, a New York Times investigation has revealed.
Federal agents who normally hunt child exploitation rings have been pulled away for weeks at a time to staff deportation efforts, dramatically reducing the government’s pursuit of pedophiles.
A national security probe tracking Iranian oil sales that bankroll terrorism has languished for months, allowing tanker ships and millions in terror funding to slip through the cracks as investigators focus on immigration enforcement.
Human smuggling and sex trafficking investigations have stalled with agents re-assigned to deportation duty.
Even the Coast Guard has been dragged into the immigration crackdown — its aircraft now shuttling immigrants between detention centers instead of patrolling waters. The department’s law enforcement academy has suspended training programs across multiple agencies to prioritize churning out new immigration officers.
The New York Times reportedly spoke with more than 65 officials in the federal government.
Their investigation also looked at international documents from DHS that include search warrants, arrests, information about workloads and more – all through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Officials at DHS and the White House backed the president’s homeland security overhaul, saying that immigration is a key issue and essential to national security and the safety of Americans everywhere.
In late May, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issued a warning to the department, telling ICE officials that no one’s jobs would be safe, including her own, if deportation levels did not pick up
Amid the Trump administration’s renewed push to prioritize ICE-led deportations, several other critical Homeland Security missions are reportedly being neglected, according to a New York Times investigation
Federal agents, including US Marshalls, FBI agents and HSI agents, detain a woman during an immigration enforcement raid in Massachusetts
US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT) as prisoners stand, looking out from a cell in El Salvador
The White House responded to the story saying ‘any insinuation that the Trump administration isn’t successfully combating dangerous crime is false and uninformed.’
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the department of homeland security echoed a similar sentiment.
‘Child exploitation, human trafficking, terrorism, financial scams and smuggling all have a nexus to illegal immigration… DHS is mobilizing federal and state law enforcement to find, arrest and deport illegal aliens. We are prioritizing the worst of the worst and aliens with final removal orders. Nearly every day we are arresting pedophiles, known or suspected terrorists, kidnappers, child smugglers and sex traffickers, including those who entered our country illegally,’ McLaughlin said.
However, critics argue that the changes at the departmental level have been significantly detrimental to other important efforts.
A Times analysis of information obtained through their FOIA showed that Homeland Security investigators worked about 33% fewer hours on child exploitation cases from February through April of this year, compared to the same time frame in years before.
Computer scientist Hany Farid, who helped design software used by police to identify child sex abuse content, calls it ‘heartbreaking.’
‘You can’t say you care about kids when you’re diverting actual resources that are protecting children,’ Farid added.
In late May, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issued a warning to the department, telling ICE officials that no one’s jobs would be safe, including her own, if deportation levels did not pick up.
DHS numbers show that illegal immigration has hit a record low – they have deported more than 55,000 people so far – hitting a daily removal cadence that has not been seen since the Obama administration.
