DHS reassigns ‘hundreds’ of CISA cyber employees to support Trump deportation campaign

The US Department of Homeland Security is reassigning hundreds of employees across several of its agencies to help with the Trump administration’s broad crackdown on immigration, and will fire employees who refuse to comply, according to news reports.

Bloomberg It was reported on Wednesday that the department had transferred staff from the US cybersecurity agency CISA, many of whom focus on issuing cyber guidance to help US government agencies and critical infrastructure defend against cyber threats, to other agencies within the federal department, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Both Bloomberg and… Nextgov She stated that many of the affected CISA employees are in the agency’s Capacity Building Unit, which helps improve the cybersecurity posture of federal agencies, as well as its Stakeholder Engagement Division, the group that leads CISA’s partnerships with international agencies and organizations.

Other CISA employees were transferred to the Federal Protective Service, a police unit that works with ICE and CBP on deportations, according to the posts.

The Trump administration has made immigration enforcement a major policy since taking office in January, with lawmakers in July – Allocating $150 billion in taxpayer funding To support deportations by ICE. A large portion of the funding will go towards the use of technology, From spyware to data brokers to location datato track millions of individuals across the United States.

News of the reappointments comes at a time when the United States is facing a wave of hacks targeting private industry and the federal government.

In recent weeks, an English-speaking criminal gang has stolen large amounts of data from dozens of companies that store customer information in Salesforce databases; Russian pirates They stole sealed documents from the US federal court system; A SharePoint bug earlier this year allowed hackers to do just that Violating several US federal departmentsincluding the agency charged with maintaining the security of the US government’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.

In an emailed statement, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin told TechCrunch that the agency “routinely adjusts personnel 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.

“Any notion that DHS is ill-prepared to deal with the threats facing our nation due to these reorganizations is ludicrous,” McLaughlin said. But McLaughlin did not say, when asked by TechCrunch, whether the reassigned CISA roles would be reassigned or remain vacant.