Exclusive: Letter decries ‘stunning abdication of basic responsibilities’ and demands to know how many officers diverted

The Trump administration has abandoned efforts to combat child exploitation, human trafficking and cartels as it diverts thousands of law enforcement personnel to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Democratic senators said in a letter to the White House.

Ruben Gallego of Arizona, along with 28 other Democratic senators and one independent, wrote to the president, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) on Monday demanding federal officials provide a “full accounting” of officers who have been redirected to immigration enforcement and a list of all investigations impacted by the reassignments.

The letter, first shared with the Guardian, follows a series of reports suggesting that the president’s push to dramatically expand its force of immigration officers has hampered a wide range of law-enforcement priorities. The senators cited an ICE document from August 2025, published by the Cato Institute, a thinktank, which said more than 28,000 personnel from federal law-enforcement agencies had been diverted from their regular duties to work for ICE’s enforcement and removal operations (ERO), which conducts raids and arrests undocumented people.