CHICAGO (WLS) — Elected officials are voicing serious concerns over federal agents on Joint Terrorism Task Forces now being reassigned to immigration and deportation missions, the ABC7 I-Team has learned.
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Outgoing Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, who has promised to see important issues through the end of his term, said he fears more elected officials will become targets with fewer resources to protect them.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was forced to evacuate with his family following an arson attack at his mansion. Incidents like that are alarming to Durbin.
“There’s an exception being created by the Trump administration, where these organizations, domestic terrorist organizations, are not being as closely watched as they were under the Biden presidency,” Durbin said. “I think they continue to be a threat to the safety of individuals and particularly elected officials.”
Durbin said the orders, coming directly from President Donald Trump, to allocate assets and manpower assisting homeland security with immigration enforcement and deportations is putting the American people and elected officials at risk from extremists.
Those orders were given to the JTTF in February, according to an internal FBI memo obtained by the I-Team.
That letter was signed by FBI-Chicago’s Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ryan Maxwell.
“With as many guns as we have floating around in the United States with as many people with strange political views,” Durbin said. “We have to take this very seriously. These domestic terrorists are just as lethal as a foreign terrorist.”
An I-Team report on the reassignment was quoted in Congress as Democratic Illinois Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi questioned FBI Director Kash Patel.
“A memo obtained by ABC7 news of Chicago said that this task force will now be, quote, actively supporting close quote, the Department of Homeland Security and its immigration enforcement,” Krishnamoorthi said. “I don’t say this lightly, if there’s a terrorist attack anywhere in the country, including in Chicago, and it was because the JTTFs, in part, shifted resources there will be held to pay.”
Durbin cited the fact President Trump himself was a victim of extremist political violence in the assassination attempt on the campaign trail.
“Thank God he survived it, but it’s a reminder of the vulnerability of individuals, even those, in this case, running for President of the United States they certainly deserve safety and security for themselves and their families,” Durbin said.
The Senator sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this month, asking her to reverse what he says are cuts to domestic terrorism prevention efforts, saying “Taken together, these moves represent a broad institutional pullback from confronting the full scope of domestic terrorism.”
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