The FBI has been involved in the arrests of 10,553 illegal immigrants since the start of the second Trump administration.
The data, which was first shared with Fox News, coincide with FBI Director Kash Patel’s efforts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security in achieving President Donald Trump’s goals of curbing illegal immigration, an agenda that emphasizes aggressive deportation tactics and high-profile crackdowns on gang activity, particularly involving MS-13.
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“The @FBI is proud to work with great partners like @TheJusticeDept @DHSgov @ICEgov @DEAHQ and more to stand up record immigration enforcement efforts across the country,” Patel posted on X. “With this administration’s leadership we’re letting good cops be cops again and there’s more results to come.”
The data, confirmed by the FBI with the Washington Examiner, has emerged amid sweeping changes in FBI leadership, with several senior officials stepping down or being ousted by Patel in recent months.
Since the start of the Trump administration, approximately one-third of FBI employees, 13,192 in total, have been engaged in immigration enforcement. Historically, the FBI has had limited direct engagement with immigration enforcement, leaving that responsibility primarily to agencies such as ICE and Customs and Border Protection. However, under Trump-era directives, the FBI began increasing its coordination with these agencies, particularly in joint operations targeting transnational gangs.
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In one such effort, the FBI was part of the Virginia Homeland Security Task Force that led to the arrest of alleged MS-13 gang leader Henry Josue Villatoro Santos in March. A total of 342 arrests were made as a result of that operation, in which 81 of those arrested had “gang or transnational crime affiliation.”
The release of FBI data comes just days after White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller criticized senior DHS and ICE officials for low arrests and deportation numbers.