The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has ordered agents to direct more attention to purging illegal aliens from the United States, with sources telling Reuters that they were told to deprioritize white-collar crime investigations to devote more time to immigration enforcement.
Investigating white-collar cases will remain deprioritized for the rest of 2025 at least, four people familiar with the matter told the outlet on Monday.
The sources’ claims came on the same day that Matthew Galeotti, chief of the Justice Department’s (DOJ) Criminal Division, directed prosecutors to scale back their approach to such cases and to “minimize the length and collateral impact” of such investigations.
In his Monday memorandum, Galeotti listed health care fraud, trade and customs fraud, elder securities fraud, and transnational crime like “Chinese Money Laundering Organizations” as ones to prioritize for prosecution.
He also told prosecutors to carefully consider whether corporate misconduct “warrants federal criminal prosecution.”
“Prosecution of individuals, as well as civil and administrative remedies directed at corporations, are often appropriate to address low-level corporate misconduct and vindicate U.S. interests,” Galeotti wrote.
The reported focus on immigration enforcement comes soon after President Donald Trump’s acting chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Andrea Lucas, warned that companies that prefer migrants and H-1B visa workers over Americans will face federal investigations and discrimination lawsuits.
“The EEOC is putting employers and other covered entities on notice: if you are part of the pipeline contributing to our immigration crisis or abusing our legal immigration system via illegal preferences against American workers, you must stop,” Lucas said in a February 20 notice.
“The law applies to you, and you are not above the law. The EEOC is here to protect all workers from unlawful national origin discrimination, including American workers,” she added.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
