The US Senator urges DS to investigate whether agents have been transferred from criminal cases to deportation

Since February, multiple news Report A considerable number of agents from the Homeland Security Survey (HSI) — Homeland Security’s investigation buildings, including child exploitation, human trafficking, and drug cartels — have been drawn from child exploitation cases and are being reassigned to immigration enforcement and arrest.

US Sen. Ron Wyden urged inspectors of General Joseph Kafari on Tuesday in a letter shared solely with WIRED, to begin an investigation into the truth and scope of these reports regarding HSI “quickly.” General Kafari, inspector I have permission Perform an audit or investigation of activities or operations at DHS.

“Instead of locking up rapists, child predators and other violent criminals (President Donald), Trump appears to be diverting investigators to target gals, farm workers and students,” Wyden said in the letter. “Congress and the American people will not tolerate the Trump administration by ignoring the ongoing sexual abuse of vulnerable children, so we recommend that you quickly investigate these annoying reports.”

Wyden told Wired in a statement that read, “There is no excuse to separate investigators from the most vicious cases involving child exploitation,” adding that “we should not prioritize protecting children at risk.”

Wired contacted several US-based child welfare and advocacy groups to provide comments on this article, but did not reply or reject comments about the record. One official from these organizations who requested anonymity argued that their organization could not provide comment on the story due to fears of retaliation from the Trump administration.

February, USA Today reported The HSI’s “wide research sector” shifts its focus primarily on immigrant arrest and deportation, as opposed to the typical scope of work. After that, Reuters In March HSI agents reported that they were actively “reallocated” from cases they were working in connection with child exploitation, money laundering cases, drug trafficking and tax fraud. They were then tasked with enforcing immigration. At the time, Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin told the outlet that the change was “unsafe to America” and “a wasteful, misguided resource shift.”

Atlantic Ocean Reported in July Veteran HSI agents said the department has pending major criminal investigations and have chosen not to take on new cases, including drug cases, human trafficking cases and child exploitation cases.

The changes in priorities reported by the HSI comes after the National Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) say they received it 20.5 Million Tips Alleged sexual exploitation of a child in 2024.

Risks to children Involvement in AI Abuse materials– It is also the domain of HSI Also, we have reached a crisis level. Received by NCMEC in 2024 Approximately 67,000 tips A 1,325% increase from 2023 when we received 4,700 of these tips on suspicion of abused materials generated by AI.