(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Instead of enforcing unconstitutional gun and drug laws, the Trump administration apparently wants the DEA and ATF to help on illegal immigration.
The Wall Street Journal revealed Wednesday that the Trump administration has granted immigration-enforcement authority to several agencies at the Justice Department, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
Citing an internal Trump administration memo, the Journal reported that FBI agents are also being reminded to use their immigration-arresting powers. The FBI typically doesn’t arrest illegal immigrants unless the work is related to national security. The ATF and DEA don’t usually deal with illegal immigration, either, unless it’s related to drug or gun offenses.
“Though the memo doesn’t directly deputize those agents to assist with President Trump’s promised deportation campaign, administration officials are planning for the Justice Department to cooperate by lending some agents, a person familiar with the matter said,” the Journal reported.
The move to marshal DOJ resources follows other measures Trump has launched to curb illegal immigration, including sending 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border. The DHS also repealed a Biden-era rule this week that prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from making arrests in “sensitive locations,” such as schools and churches.
According to border czar Tom Homan, Trump’s ICE has already begun targeting criminal illegal aliens as part of the president’s mass deportation plan, starting in Democratic-controlled sanctuary cities.
“Let me be clear. There’s not only public safety threats that will be arrested, because in sanctuary cities, we’re not allowed to get that public safety threat in the jail, which means we got to go to the neighborhood and find him,” Homan said on Tuesday. “And when we find him, he may be with others. And unlike the last administration, we’re not going to tell ICE officers not to arrest an illegal alien.”
However, no wide-scale deportation operations have begun yet.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
