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Drug Arrests and Gun Seizures Fell as Homeland Security Pursued Immigration
Internal documents reveal the impact on crime fighting as the Trump administration diverts special agents to its mass deportation agenda.
A Homeland Security Investigations agent near Chicago in October.Credit…Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
- Nov. 25, 2025
Amid President Trump’s immigration crackdown, special agents at the Homeland Security Department have made fewer arrests for drug crimes and seized fewer weapons than they did the previous fiscal year, according to internal government documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The numbers reflect a shift in priorities as top officials at the department pulled special agents off drug, gun and other complex criminal investigations under pressure from the White House to deport more undocumented immigrants, current and former federal officials told The Times.
The impact was clear, with immigration arrests soaring. The number of people arrested by homeland security special agents for civil immigration offenses went from roughly 5,000 to a record of more than 94,500, the data shows.
Among the key figures in the documents:
- Narcotics arrests fell by roughly 11 percent.
- Agents opened 15 percent fewer new investigations into narcotics crimes.
- The number of weapons seized fell dramatically, declining from nearly 41,400 to fewer than 11,200 — a 73 percent drop.
The data comes from an internal report by Homeland Security Investigations, the agency’s crime-fighting arm. The report offers a comparison of enforcement statistics between Oct. 1, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2025, and the same period during the previous year. That time frame includes roughly four months of the Biden administration and eight months of the Trump administration.
Overall, the report shows that criminal arrests went up to more than 46,000, a 41 percent rise. The increase was driven in part by several types of investigations often related to immigration, such as human smuggling and trafficking. But roughly 12,000 of the arrests were not categorized by crime type, making it difficult to assess the kinds of cases that accounted for the reported rise.
The Times reported last week that H.S.I.’s investigations into major crimes, including child exploitation and terrorism financing, had faltered after special agents were ordered to assist with the immigration crackdown. Dozens of officials who have worked under the current Trump administration said the shifts had hindered their case work.
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