Patel's immigration push at FBI yields 10,000 arrests since January
EXCLUSIVE: FBI Director Kash Patel's efforts to help carry out the Trump administration's immigration agenda have led to the bureau making 10,553 arrests since January.
That figure, included in FBI data reviewed exclusively by Fox News Digital, reflects the total number of immigration-related arrests the bureau has assisted the Department of Homeland Security with making since Jan. 20, 2025.
Recent arrests involving the FBI have included, for instance, an operation at the end of May on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. The FBI aided ICE in arresting about 32 people on the two islands, including an alleged member of the MS-13 gang and a man named Luciano Pereira Deoliveira, who had pending child rape and pornography charges, according to the data.
Patel has also periodically highlighted these arrests on social media, including the FBI's capture of Harpreet Singh in April. The FBI's Sacramento field office investigated Singh, who was wanted in India for alleged ties to terrorism and whom authorities say entered the U.S. illegally in 2022.
The data comes as Patel has faced media scrutiny for the dramatic shakeup at the bureau during the past four months, which has involved ousting senior officials and other employees or attempting to relocate them to new field offices. Some reports say many agents and employees have been reassigned at times to help the DHS with immigration enforcement.
Patel adviser Erica Knight said the bureau's priorities have changed to arresting allegedly criminal immigrants in part because of the surge in illegal migration during the Biden administration.
"With over 10,000 immigration-related arrests, the Bureau under the direction of Director Patel is making it clear, it's not turning a blind eye to the border crisis, it's targeting the violent cartels and criminal networks that are exploiting it," Knight said. "This is the direction Americans have been demanding, and the Bureau is delivering on the promise to put safety and sovereignty first."
Of the roughly 38,000 employees at the FBI, 13,192 have been tasked at some point since January with working on immigration enforcement, according to the data. Employees include both agents and support staff.
The most recent week of data showed the highest number of employees working on immigration tasks were concentrated in the Los Angeles field office, followed by the Philadelphia, Houston, and San Antonio field offices.
Although a statistic-rich agency, the FBI has no prior recent data of agents and employees aiding DHS with arrests through any formal effort.
Under Patel, the FBI has launched interagency operations, such as one he and Attorney General Pam Bondi showcased in Virginia in March when announcing the arrest of an alleged top member of MS-13 in the state. The Virginia Homeland Security Task Force brought together state and federal law enforcement agencies to address transnational organized crime and immigration enforcement.
U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert of Virginia said during a press conference at the time of the arrest that the task force had made 342 arrests, "many of them with illegal status" and 81 with "gang or transnational crime affiliation." The DOJ charged the MS-13 leader with a gun charge but later moved to dismiss the charge and instead deport him.
A retired FBI agent who worked in the bureau for two decades told Fox News Digital that his understanding from interacting with a handful of agents is that some are likely to "grumble about" the new immigration enforcement work, while others view it as necessary to address the recent years' influx of migrants into the country.
"The fact that the bureau is helping out on this stuff now is just because it's unusual times," the retired agent said. "We've never had a presidential administration … import 9 million potential threats into its country, or whatever that number is, so the FBI having to get involved in this stuff is unusual, but it's also necessary."
"I think it was inevitable the FBI does get involved, but the trick is they've got to juggle helping out DHS and also tending the farm," he said.
The retired agent also said the bureau "brings a lot to the table that these other agencies just don't have," such as new sources, databases, and skill sets. He also said the work can be beneficial for the FBI because of the intelligence-gathering opportunity it presents.
"I would hope they're exploiting every single one of these guys, clearly debriefing them and finding out what they know and who they know," he said.
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