Postal inspectors aren’t being pulled away from mail crime investigations for immigration enforcement, IG reports

Several federal agencies have reassigned employees to support the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, but the U.S. Postal Service’s watchdog found in a new report that any immigration-related work conducted by postal law enforcement officers is limited and has a nexus to mail crime. 

“We did not observe any Postal Inspection Service resources diverted solely for immigration enforcement activities,” auditors from the USPS inspector general office wrote. 

The IG reported that, since the start of Trump’s second term, the USPIS has reassigned nine inspectors (less than 1%) to a Homeland Security Task Force. Based on agency data, however, none of the transfers were solely related to immigration enforcement and often dealt with threats like drug trafficking, human trafficking and financial crimes. 

Likewise, auditors found that 39 postal inspectors (3%) in the same time frame assisted with investigations that had an immigration-related component for another law enforcement agency. 

“For these investigations, postal inspectors mainly performed address checks for [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and provided investigative support when targets used the mail to traffic drugs and launder money, according to Postal Inspection Service data,” the IG wrote. 

USPS OIG’s audit was initiated by a request from lawmakers who wanted to know if “potential resource diversions to immigration enforcement activities” impacted USPIS’s ability to investigate white collar crime. 

The watchdog reported that the number of initiated white collar cases increased from 693 in fiscal 2024 to 1,100 in fiscal 2025 and that the number of such cases that were closed or resulted in charges between the two fiscal years marginally decreased. 

“This review assessed congressional concerns about the Postal Inspection Service’s involvement in immigration-related activities since January 2025 and did not identify impacts to white-collar crime investigations attributable to resource shifts toward immigration enforcement,” the auditors wrote. 

Gary R. Barksdale, the chief postal inspector, agreed with the report’s findings in an attached letter. 

“The Postal Inspection Service has not sought, has not been delegated and does not exercise any immigration enforcement authority, and no postal inspector serves in the capacity of an immigration officer,” he wrote. 

Trump has fired many agency IGs and replaced several of them with individuals who worked in his first or second administration. The postal IG, however, is appointed (and would be removed) by the USPS Board of Governors and Postal Regulatory Commission.