The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is reassigning hundreds of employees across multiple departments to support the Trump administration's broader immigration crackdown, and plans to fire those who don't comply, according to reports.
Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the department has transferred employees from the U.S. Cybersecurity Agency, CISA, which focuses on issuing cyber guidance to protect U.S. government agencies and critical infrastructure from cyber threats, to other agencies within the federal department, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Both Bloomberg and NextGob reported that many of the affected CISA employees are in the agency's Capacity Building Division, which helps federal agencies improve their cybersecurity posture, and the Stakeholder Engagement Division, a group that leads CISA's partnerships with international agencies and organizations.
Other CISA employees were transferred to the Federal Protective Service, the police force responsible for deportations in cooperation with ICE and CBP, the publication said.
Immigration enforcement has been a mainstay of the Trump administration since taking office in January, with lawmakers in July approving $150 billion in taxpayer funds to support ICE deportations. Much of the funding will go toward using technology to track millions of individuals across the United States, from spyware to data brokers and location data.
News of the reassignment comes as the United States faces a wave of hacks targeting private industry and the federal government.
In recent weeks, an English-speaking criminal organization has stolen large amounts of data from dozens of companies that store customer information in Salesforce databases. Russian hackers stole sealed documents from the US federal court system. Also, earlier this year, a bug in SharePoint allowed hackers to penetrate several departments of the U.S. federal government, including the agency tasked with keeping the U.S. government's nuclear weapons stockpile secure.
In an emailed statement, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told TechCrunch that the agency “regularly adjusts its workforce to meet mission priorities while ensuring continuity in all core mission areas,” and did not dispute media reports that hundreds of employees would be reassigned.
“The idea that these realignments will leave the Department of Homeland Security unprepared to address threats to our country is absurd,” McLaughlin said. However, McLaughlin declined to say in response to TechCrunch's questions whether the reassigned CISA role would be filled or remain vacant.