Press accounts of this May directive reveal that “Justice Department officials have decided that about 2,000 of their federal agents – from the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the U.S. Marshals Service – will be enlisted to help the Department of Homeland Security find and arrest undocumented immigrants for the remainer of the year.” The Justice Department is reported to have “selected 25 cities to focus their efforts on.”

Reassigning 2,000 agents across these three agencies is a sizable number compared with the number of agents they employ. The ATF reported having just 2,572 special agents in FY 2024.

Case-by-case records recording each referral received by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices show that June criminal referrals from the ATF were just 901, dropping from 1,050 in May 2025.

Similarly, criminal referrals for violations of federal drug statutes by Drug Enforcement Administration agents also showed a parallel decline between May and June 2025, dropping by 10.4 percent. The U.S. Marshals Service also saw its criminal referrals for federal prosecution decline by 12.6 percent.

These results are based on internal referral-by-referral documents recorded by each U.S. Attorneys’ Office and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). These data were obtained after lengthy litigation by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act.

Given many factors that can impact criminal enforcement activities, this one-month drop could be short-lived. However, these early results warrant close attention. Changes in the number of referrals are often a leading indicator of other changes that lie ahead.

Because of the delay between when referrals are received by federal prosecutors, and when prosecution, conviction and sentencing take place, the full impact of these changes won’t be seen for some months. The ATF reports: “The typical ATF case recommended for prosecution remains open over a period of approximately 4 years.”