Under Patel, FBI heightens focus on violent crime

When the FBI arrested an accused leader of the MS-13 gang, Kash Patel was there to announce the case, trumpeting it as a step toward returning “our communities to safety.” Weeks later, when the Justice Department announced the seizure of $510 million in illegal narcotics bound for the US, the FBI director joined other law enforcement leaders in front of a Coast Guard ship in Florida and stacks of intercepted drugs to highlight the haul. His presence was meant to signal the premium the FBI is placing on combating violent crime, drug trafficking and illegal immigration, concerns that have leapfrogged up the agenda in what current and former law enforcement officials say amounts to a rethinking of priorities and mission at a time when the country is also confronting increasingly sophisticated national security threats from abroad.

A revised FBI priority list on its website places "Crush Violent Crime" at the top, bringing the bureau into alignment with the vision of President Donald Trump, who has made a crackdown on illegal immigration, cartels and transnational gangs a cornerstone of his administration. Patel has said he wants to “get back to the basics.” His deputy, Dan Bongino, says the FBI is returning to “its roots.” Patel says the FBI remains focused on some of the same concerns, including China, that have dominated headlines in recent years, and the bureau said in a statement that its commitment to investigating international and domestic terrorism has not changed. That intensifying threat was laid bare over the past month by a spate of violent acts, most recently a Molotov cocktail attack on a Colorado crowd by an Egyptian man who authorities say overstayed his visa and yelled "Free Palestine."

"The FBI continuously analyses the threat landscape and allocates resources and personnel in alignment with that analysis and the investigative needs of the Bureau," the FBI said in a statement. "We make adjustments and changes based on many factors and remain flexible as various needs arise." Signs of restructuring abound. The Justice Department has disbanded an FBI-led task force on foreign influence and the bureau has moved to dissolve a key public corruption squad in its Washington field office, people familiar with the matter have told The Associated Press. The Trump administration, meanwhile, has proposed steep budget cuts for the FBI, and there's been significant turnover in leadership ranks as some veteran agents with years of experience have been pushed from their positions.

Some former officials are concerned the stepped-up focus on violent crime and immigration - areas already core to the mission of agencies including the Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — risks deflecting attention from some of the complicated criminal and national security threats for which the bureau has long borne primary if not exclusive responsibility for investigating. "If you're looking down five feet in front of you, looking for gang members and I would say lower-level criminals, you're going to miss some of the more sophisticated strategic issues that may be already present or emerging," said Chris Piehota, who retired from the FBI in 2020 as an executive assistant director.

Enforcement of immigration laws has long been the principal jurisdiction of immigration agents tasked with arresting people in the US illegally along with border agents who police points of entry. Since Trump's inauguration, the FBI has assumed greater responsibility for that work, saying it's made over 10,000 immigration-related arrests. Patel has highlighted the arrests on social media, doubling down on the administration's promise to prioritise immigration enforcement. Agents have been dispatched to visit migrant children who crossed the U.S-Mexico border without parents in what officials say is an effort to ensure their safety. Field offices have been directed to commit manpower to immigration enforcement.

The Justice Department has instructed the FBI to review files for information about those illegally in the US and provide it to the Department of Homeland Security unless doing so would compromise an investigation. And photos on the FBI's Instagram account depict agents with covered faces and tactical gear alongside detained subjects, with a caption saying the FBI is "ramping up" efforts with immigration agents to locate "dangerous criminals."

"We're giving you about five minutes to cooperate," Bongino said on Fox News about illegal immigrants. "If you're here illegally, five minutes, you're out."

That's a rhetorical shift from prior leadership. Though Patel's direct predecessor, Christopher Wray, warned about the flow of fentanyl through the southern border and the possibility migrants determined to commit terrorism could illegally cross through, he did not characterise immigration enforcement as core to the FBI's mission. There's precedent for the FBI to rearrange priorities to meet evolving threats, though for the past two decades countering terrorism has remained a constant atop the agenda. Then-Director Robert Mueller transformed the FBI after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks into a national security, intelligence-gathering agency. Agents were reassigned from investigations into drugs, violent crime and white-collar fraud to fight terrorism. In a top 10 priority list from 2002, protecting the US from terrorism was first. Fighting violent crime was near the bottom, above only supporting law enforcement partners and technology upgrades.

The FBI's new list of priorities places "Crush Violent Crime" as a top pillar alongside "Defend the Homeland," though FBI leaders have also sought to stress that counterterrorism remains the bureau's principal mandate. Wray often said he was hard-pressed to think of a time when the FBI was facing so many elevated threats at once. At the time of his departure last January, the FBI was grappling with elevated terrorism concerns; Iranian assassination plots on US soil; Chinese spying and hacking of Americans' cell phones; ransomware attacks against hospitals; and Russian influence operations aimed at sowing disinformation.

Associated Press