Democrats Fear Trump Immigration Agenda Threatens Other Missions

President Donald Trump’s critics are sounding alarms his sweeping approach to immigration enforcement undermines other critical missions, including military readiness and combating fentanyl trafficking.

The frustrations are reverberating among Democrats on Capitol Hill amid a steady drumbeat of efforts by various agencies and offices to move money and people to support the administration’s border and immigration agenda.

“With all these shifted resources, I’m worried they’re dropping the ball on other priorities,” Sen. Alex Padilla (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee’s immigration panel, said. The effort also comes as Trump’s bid to shrink the federal workforce causes broader upheaval.

Trump officials have pushed back on Democrats’ concerns about the shift, saying the criticism rings hollow after border crossings rose to unprecedented levels during President Joe Biden’s administration.

Agencies have moved quickly to shuffle resources to border and immigration enforcement since Trump took office less than two months ago. The Department of Homeland Security is taking the lead, but other agencies, including the Justice, State, and Treasury departments, are assisting the efforts.

The Trump administration has tapped agents from the Justice Department’s Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, for example, to help meet the president’s mass deportation goals.

The Pentagon is also playing a key role, deploying troops to the border, conducting early deportation flights, and holding migrants at Guantanamo Bay. Even the Internal Revenue Service is playing a role, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem deputizing tax crime investigators for immigration enforcement.

IRS Agents Tapped to Assist With Trump Immigration Crackdown

The full picture of how the Trump administration is moving resources to support the immigration mission is hazy, as agencies have taken an array of actions — some sweeping and public and others behind the scenes.

Military Readiness, Drug Trafficking

The risk of undercutting key missions of law enforcement agencies such as the DEA and DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations is of particular concern to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), a former prosecutor and state attorney general.

“We want our DEA agents out there addressing drug trafficking,” she said. “We want HSI in Homeland Security looking at counterfeit and human trafficking. There’s a role for them to play, it is not on the border doing immigration or immigration enforcement in the interior.”

Chris Murphy, one of the Senate’s most outspoken advocates of gun regulations, outlined similar frustrations, saying DHS’s recruitment of ATF to assist with immigration enforcement was detracting from its work on drug interdiction, counternarcotics enforcement, and combating gun trafficking.

Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee, including ranking member Jack Reed (R.I.) and Mark Kelly (Ariz.), have also aired concerns about how the military’s involvement in border and immigration enforcement affects readiness.

Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly, shown during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Jan. 14, raises concerns about maintaining military readiness.

Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg

“You take members of the military away from their primary mission, which is often training for whatever their job is and make them essentially Border Patrol agents, CBP officers, doing law enforcement roles,” Kelly said, referring to Customs and Border Protection. “That means they’re not going to be ready if called upon to defend this nation.”

While previous administrations have sent military personnel to assist at the border, Trump has ramped up the Pentagon’s role — with around 9,000 troops there now.

‘Rob Peter to Pay Paul’

Trump officials and Republican lawmakers have roundly dismissed Democrats’ concerns as political posturing. DHS maintains that the surge of resources is a necessary reset of priorities.

“Oddly, for the past four years, these politicians haven’t worried one iota about human trafficking or the scourge of deadly drugs that came across our border killing thousands of Americans and destroying families,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in an email to Bloomberg Government.

Armed forces leaders have likewise defended the military’s involvement.

“The Army has a long, 249-year history of balancing multiple objectives,” Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said during his confirmation hearing. “We’ve had soldiers at the border for a number of years, and the Army stands ready for any mission.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who leads the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s border panel, acknowledged that shifting resources to the border has consequences in other areas.

“There’s always an issue because if you’re going to rob Peter to pay Paul, then you’ve got to be able to figure out, OK, what about Peter’s work that’s over here as well, how that’s going to actually operate?” he said.

But, he added, the border situation needed that surge of resources, and the plummeting of illegal crossings will allow many of the personnel to return to their normal duties.

“When you’ve got easier management you can start pulling people back and getting them back on task,” he said. “It’s a surge-type issue, that doesn’t bother me.”

‘Natural Synergy’

Some of the areas Democrats have complained about, such as potential impediments to counternarcotics work, are intertwined with cracking down on illegal border crossings, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), the top homeland security appropriator in the Senate, said.

“There’s a natural synergy in accomplishing the mission,” she said. Britt added, however, that she would seek more details about where resources were being diverted.

Democrats say they’re making that information-gathering one of their top priorities, but so far they’ve come up short.

“We’ve been asking, but it’s been slow,” Murphy said.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said Trump’s team is “not being transparent about how and when they’re doing these reprioritizations” and he’s mostly had to get information from agents he’s spoken with directly.

“I’m glad to see they care now,” McLaughlin said of Democrats. “But these politicians can rest assured, under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, our men and women in law enforcement will have the resources they need to do their jobs and keep Americans safe.”