Trump cuts thousands from FBI, DEA and ATF despite crime crackdown promise

The Trump administration has cut more than 4,000 jobs from some of the federal government’s most visible law-enforcement agencies, even as it promises a tougher crackdown on crime. Justice Department records show the Federal Bureau of Investigation has lost more than 7% of its workforce since the government’s 2024 fiscal year, a drop of roughly 2,600 employees.

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s staffing is down about 6%, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has lost about 14% of its workers. Those losses reach beyond the headline agencies. Other parts of the Justice Department have shrunk even more quickly, a broader pullback that affects federal criminal enforcement, civil-rights work and national-security operations.

The reductions hit agencies assigned to some of the government’s most sensitive cases, including terrorism investigations, drug-trafficking prosecutions and efforts to keep guns away from criminals. Stacey Young, a former Justice Department lawyer, said the administration was talking aggressively about crime and terrorism while hollowing out the agencies that handle those problems. The scale of the cuts raises questions about whether investigators and prosecutors can maintain the same coverage, speed and expertise with fewer people in the field.

The workforce decline also collides with the department’s own recent budget priorities. In its fiscal 2025 budget summary, the Justice Department said it wanted funding for about 150 additional agents across ATF, the FBI and DEA, along with 120 more attorneys and money to hire 4,700 local detectives. House Democrats have since said the administration’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal would cut more than $1 billion from Justice Department programs that support local law enforcement and violent-crime reduction.

The pressure on federal law enforcement is not limited to layoffs and departures. The FBI and Justice Department have been racing to refill vacancies by easing hiring requirements and accelerating recruitment. The FBI has used social-media campaigns to draw applicants, offered abbreviated training for some candidates coming from other federal agencies and loosened rules for support staff who want to become agents. The department has also opened the door to hiring prosecutors straight out of law school for vacant U.S. attorney’s offices.

The cuts land against a longer pattern of strain. DEA staffing data show the agency fell from 11,088 total employees in fiscal 2016 to 9,848 in fiscal 2021, underscoring how much these institutions were already under pressure before the latest reductions. Senate appropriators have warned that budget cuts could weaken the FBI’s counterterrorism work, firearm background checks and its fight against violent crime, drugs, gangs and transnational organized crime, leaving the administration to test whether it can project toughness while shrinking the machinery that enforces it.