Washington DC - Nearly half of FBI agents working in major field offices across the country have been reassigned to aid US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, newly released data reveals.

Personnel data obtained by Democratic Senator Mark Warner and shared with the Guardian reveals that President Donald Trump's administration has moved 45% of FBI agents in the country's 25 largest field offices into immigration enforcement roles.

In these positions, the FBI agents have been tasked with supporting the Department of Homeland Security and ICE in their brutal crackdown on migrants across the US.

Nationwide, 23% of Kash Patel's FBI agents have been placed in anti-immigration roles, taking significant resources away from the plethora of other issues under their jurisdiction.

Warner warned that having 23% of FBI agents deployed alongside ICE, which already receives record funding and support, will see investigations into cybercrimes, terrorism, espionage, and counterintelligence suffer.

"When you pull a quarter of the FBI's top agents off the front lines of fighting terrorists, spies, drug traffickers, and violent criminals, the consequences are clear: Critical national security work gets sidelined, and our country is put at greater risk," Warner said in a statement.

The data was first reported on by the Washington Post and suggests that Patel intends to shift the focus of the FBI away from crime-fighting and towards increasing immigration raids and expanding its collection of brutal mass-detention camps.

"We are weakening ourselves day by day," said former FBI Senior Executive Chris O'Leary in comments cited by the Washington Post.

"Having agents walk the beat and conduct immigration arrests is really a misuse of exquisite ability."